How To Age a Pressure Gauge

Below is a close up of the pressure gauge which resides on the end of the hose on Packrat's mask, from the upcoming movie After The Fall. Below I have listed the three steps I used to transform a brand new shiny gauge to the grungy one shown.

1. Sand the nickel coating off of the edges of the copper ring that surrounds the glass.
2. Cover the entire gauge liberally with a brown wood stain, wiping off most of it.
3. Spritz a little yellow brown aniline dye onto the glass cover.

Skull Respirator: Completed

The good news is that the skull respirator is done. The bad news is that the skull faces sharply downward, so that only a small child would see it from the right angle.


Other than that one flaw I am pretty happy with it. However, that flaw looms large enough that I have decided to not pair the respirator with a fire fighter helmet (as the Death Defier) as I had planned.

I would prefer to put my time and energy into a brand new project, rather than continuing to work on a flawed one. You can see in the photo above the last parts that I added to the skull, which are aluminum tubing and steel springs, forming the cheekbone and jaw.

Skull Respirator: Color & Straps

Since I last posted about the skull respirator I've cut out the straps and dyed everything antique blue.

I've sewn on black lambskin piping, and antiqued the hardware to a dull silver to match the resin skull. Here it is mocked up. I still have more parts to add to the skull itself before it is complete.

What Is This? The Answer.

Can you identify the yellow and brown material I'm using in this respirator?
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The Answer:

Thanks to everyone who participated. It was kind of a trick question. The name of my blog is Leather and Resin Projects, so of course, this material is one of those. It is in fact leather.

This is one of the masks that I'm making for the film After The Fall, and this section is supposed to be a herringbone twill fabric. I decided the simplest way to accomplish that was to paint the leather parts yellow, and laser engrave the twill pattern (which turns the leather brown). I was pleased with how much it does look like fabric—thus my post and question—to see how easy it was to identify.

Pachy Trunk Hose Covering

This piece is part of the gas mask worn by Packrat, in the upcoming film After The Fall.


It consists of a piece of vacuum cleaner tubing covered in leather. I've chosen lambskin as it is my favorite garment weight leather, and will conform easily to the corrugations on the hose. I've marked out a rectangle on the grain side of the leather.

I'm making it with the flesh (suede) side out, so I've stitched it the normal way on a regular home sewing machine.

Here I've turned the leather right side out, and soaked it in warm water so that it will stretch slightly, which makes the leather darker.

Here it is half way pulled on. The damp lambskin pulls easily over the tubing. Once dry it will shrink back to its original size, making a snug fit.

The sleeve is completely on now, and even though still damp, you can easily see the corrugations through it. The pressure gauge (which is part of the finished mask) has been inserted to test the fit.

While still in this damp, plastic state, I wrap waxed thread down the length of the hose to emphasize the corrugations. I start by taking two spools of thread and tying their ends together. Then, beginning at the top, I wrap it around the tubing, pulling the thread into the grooves. With the back seam facing me, I cross each row over the seam and proceed working down one corrugation at a time.

Here is a close-up of the finished front of the trunk hose.

And here is a detail of the back, showing the crossing threads over the leather seam.