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This has been a long ongoing project of mine which I've had rattling around in the back of my head for well on 6 years now. The first person I saw who did this was Wolftail, (http://www.wolftronix.com/) who made the first 'animatronic tail' which was a full digitally fed, motion controlled tail. His construction technique was unique and brilliant, but I felt it could be improved upon. So I had some off time in my shop and decided to tackle the project. Little did I know that it was going to take as much time as it has.
The first pieces here are blocks of HWMPE or High Molecular Weight Polyethylene, this is the same plastic that is used in cutting boards and is actually lighter then water. Considering the density, it’s a very robust plastic and is quite tough. HWMPE is very, very cheap and easy to machine, so for making a tail, which needed to be ultralightweight to start off with, this is the ideal material. The one downfall of this plastic is there is only one kind of glue that will stick to it, and it's prohibitively expensive, so any work done with it will have to be through mechanical means.
There are 40 links here, each was machined slightly smaller both in length, and thickness to the previous. This required a milling machine capable of end milling down to .05mm tolerances, it took roughly 20 hours to do all the machining necessary. These links will form the ‘spine’ of the tail.
The first pieces here are blocks of HWMPE or High Molecular Weight Polyethylene, this is the same plastic that is used in cutting boards and is actually lighter then water. Considering the density, it’s a very robust plastic and is quite tough. HWMPE is very, very cheap and easy to machine, so for making a tail, which needed to be ultralightweight to start off with, this is the ideal material. The one downfall of this plastic is there is only one kind of glue that will stick to it, and it's prohibitively expensive, so any work done with it will have to be through mechanical means.
There are 40 links here, each was machined slightly smaller both in length, and thickness to the previous. This required a milling machine capable of end milling down to .05mm tolerances, it took roughly 20 hours to do all the machining necessary. These links will form the ‘spine’ of the tail.
Category Other / Tutorials
Species Dragon (Other)
Size 1280 x 960px
File Size 102.1 kB
do keep me posted as this goes along. I'd love to see how this works out! From my experience those cheep memory foam pads make amazing tail cover's without impeding movement potential. I tried it out with my tail, horrible for support foam, amazing for wiggle potential at the tip
Will do critter, I'm taking pictures of almost every step of the process and when this is finished, I'll put up a tutorial somewhere as to how to do it yourself. I suspect once it's done there will be quite a few scalies out there who will be chomping at the bit for one. Not sure about the foam trick. This isn't just me trying to make a tail, it's an engineering challenge for me - to make it as real moving, but as silent as possible, while the wearer has nothing to worry about except moving.
When this is finished, I expect to wear it and full out rave dance while it moves perfectly to my body behind me.
When this is finished, I expect to wear it and full out rave dance while it moves perfectly to my body behind me.
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