Body Busting

The arrival of my tailor's mannequin showed two things - that the camera carrying harness would work perfectly for suspending the harness as it is designed to hold two heavy cameras, and that unfortunately the body frame in its current shape would not fit inside the body shell.

At this point the carabiners on the camera harness are temporarily attached to the body frame using cable ties, but these will replaced by something more permanent when the positioning and weight balance of the body with the head has been better figured out.

You can see in the picture below just how much the body frame doesn't fit inside the shell. The two side poles are meant to fit inside and provide an anchor to attach the neck loops to, but they are far too wide. However, if made narrower, the frame wouldn't fit over the wearer's hips. The saddle at this point is very large - but the way I decided to put it together with pop rivets has proven on other test pieces to not cope that well under the pressure of being heated up and bent further. Therefore, the next logical solution is to remove the saddle, fit the frame inside of the body shell and then reconsider the size and shape of the saddle part of the frame - especially as it's intended to act as a back brace to balance out the weight of the neck and head

I removed the cable ties holding the saddle onto the frame and chose to replace it with a straight PVC bar for now, with the ends flattened using the clamp and heat gun, then drilled through and secured with M6 roofing bolts and washers. The frame is now narrower whilst still fitting over the wearer's hips, and the bar sits closely behind the wearer in an appropriate position for holding the back brace of the saddle before foam is added over the top.

The next step in this part of the project is to add in the back brace, cut the front bars shorter and add in the loop which forms the neck base, then attach the neck itself which supports the head. At this point I'm very hopeful that the back brace will prove enough support to take some of the weight of the other parts of the bird, as it's not as light as expected - foam is surprisingly heavy.