Well, version 1 of my overly complicated mouse tail had some... shall we say technical difficulties. Ok, I was rushing to get it done by Anthrocon, didn't have access to a proper drill press for the internals, and literally was still working on it the day before the convention.

That's a recipe for disaster, and it was only by luck and ingenuity that I managed to get it working as well as I did. I also didn't document a single step of the build so every time someone asked "how did you make that?" I could really only give vague descriptions.

I sorta go with the "maker" mentality of sharing what I figure out along the way because I've learned so much from others. I know some people have their super secret construction techniques and get upset if you happen to figure out how they did something, but I'm a share and share alike kinda gal. Just don't sell anything using what I'm sharing without asking, k?

What we have here is a 2 1/2 inch disc cut from a 1/4 inch thick plastic cutting board using a hole saw and a drill press. The center hole was widened to 7/8 inch to accommodate the threads on the 1/2 inch set screw conduit adapters. (They're for some kind of electrical stuff in buildings. Found them at Lowes in the electrical stuff.)

The set screw will help lock the assembly onto the center "spine" and I have a few different materials I plan to experiment with to see what gets the best result.

As for the 3 smaller holes, 2 of them are for control cables and the third is for tensioning so that I'm not fighting gravity with every movement as that became painful on my shoulders at the con. Not sure if I'm going to go with springs or shock cord or something similar. First time I'm trying that so it'll take some experimentation to sort out what works best.

More progress photos to come as I get more time to work on it and acquire materials.

Click here for the next step: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/14771732/