Ichabod: The Pattern

Now I'll make the patterns for the leather pieces (which will support the three cold cast parts).

I begin by marking where the seams will go on the plasticene with a Sharpie™ felt tip pen.

After sealing the clay with a coating of pink urethane resin, I cover it all with strips of masking tape. The resin is necessary as masking tape won't adhere to the clay.

Once I am satisfied with the pattern pieces I use an Xacto™ knife to cut off the individual masking tape patterns.

Now I test my pattern by cutting them in a thin cardboard, stapling and taping the different parts together. All looks fine, so I will proceed to the next step.

And finally I cut the pieces out of leather and stitch them together. The eyepieces fit nicely, however the beak opening is too large. I will have to adjust the pattern and try again.

Respirator #4

As I recall the first steampunk prop I ever made was the bad air transmutator respirator, which I still sell for $225 on Etsy. Ever since then, I've been wanting to design another respirator that I could sell for less. I make both respirators and gas masks, and the distinguishing feature in the nomenclature that I use is that respirators cover just the mouth and nose, whereas gas masks also cover the eyes.

I made a series of sketches to work out the design. I wanted to use mostly rivets in the construction, which is less labor-intensive than either machine- or handsewing.
Initially I wasn't going to provide any resin canisters as another cost savings measure.
Ultimately I decided to add two smaller identical canisters, as functionally it made little sense to have none.
Once I was happy with the pattern I tested it in green paper, and when that looked like it was working I cut it out of leather and riveted it all together. I need to add straps and make a few alterations, but I think it's a good beginning.

Dr. Beulenpest: Making the Pattern

Now that the sculpt and resin beak are done I have moved on to making the pattern for the leather pieces.

Here I have finished the beak casting by removing the extra resin, and I've returned the plasticine I cut off earlier to the end of the beak.

Since the resin beak will sit atop the leather I need to extend the clay underneath it, but reduced in size to fit within the beak. I've marked in red where the leather trim will go.

Tape won't stick to plasticine, so I have covered the clay in a brushed on coating of urethane resin.

Once the resin has cured I remark my seam lines with a black Sharpie™, and then I've started covering one half of the face in blue masking tape. Since the mask is symmetrical I only need a pattern for half of it.

As the layers of tape cross one another I keep remarking the seam lines so I don't lose sight of them.

Lastly I cut the tape pattern along the lines I've marked with an X-acto knife. Ideally they should lay almost flat, and these do.

Tauruscat: The Pattern

I have enough of an idea as to how the helmet should look to move forward on this, and so I have begun making the patterns. First I had to create a head form over which to shape the cased leather helmet. To do this I bought a used hardhat and filled it with a harder version of plaster, and stuck a pipe into it so I could mount it in a vise. Then, after popping it out of the hardhat, I shaped the head form with a Surform® (a hand tool which is a combination of rasp and plane) until it resembled my Bavarian helmet.

Next I had to enlarge it so that one size would fit all, which I accomplished by fiberglassing over the plaster with stockinette and polyester resin. The fiberglass was rough and uneven, and so I smeared Bondo™ all over it to fill in the gaps. After sanding it smooth the pink resin and whitish Bondo left a mottled look.

First with a pencil, and then with a Sharpie®, I drew out the patterns. Professor Tauruscat had a strong belief in numerology, with both seven and eleven having a strong significance to him, so I made the skull pattern with seven panels, which will be pierced by eleven holes for mounting the sensors.

Then I laid masking tape over the form, and traced my pattern lines onto the surface so that I could cut them off. The pattern piece on top will be covered with a resin central processing engine as described in the letter. After laying the individual pieces of tape down on cardstock, I will have my patterns, and can then transfer them to the leather.

Skull Respirator: The Leather Pattern

In the first picture below I have finished casting, shaping and gluing on the resin spoon handles.


This conglomeration is just about ready to mold in preparation for casting in cold cast aluminum.


Above I am working out the pattern for the leather surround in cardstock. This is the piece that will actually touch the face, and will support the two straps. At the bottom of the picture is the pattern laid out flat, with red marking where the straps will attach. A second slightly altered pattern is taped around the acrylic skull in order to check that fit.

Defender: The Neckguard Trim

I will be adding a second layer of leather over the bottom edge of the neckguard, in order to reinforce it and make it lay smoother. If I make the trim the same size as the neckguard, and stitch them together, the resulting piece will want to lay flat, which I don't want. The neckguard should roughly form a half circle. In order to get it to readily make that shape I will make the trim piece longer than the base piece.

If you take two pieces of paper—one slightly shorter than the other—and fasten the ends together, it will bend into a curve. If you wrap tape around a tube, and keep adding it on over itself, the tape will build up in thickness, with the circumference of each turn being slightly larger than the previous one. Drafting a pattern for the neckguard uses the same principle.


I can make the patterns in paper, and bend and measure them to find the right size differential, but that won't be accurate for cutting it in leather because the leather is thicker than paper, and thus needs a larger differential. Add to that the fact that vegetable tanned leather—which I cut and stitch while damp—will shrink while drying, and I can only guess at how long the trim should be.



Here is the neckguard trim piece after cutting and dying.



And here it is tacked into position. The oblong openings will hold luminiferous aether collection devices.

Defender: Sewing the Helm

I spent many hours both yesterday and today handstitching together the Defender helmet parts with waxed thread. Alas, it turned out to be too small for the plastic form. I cut and sew the leather wet, and when it dries it shrinks, so there is a certain amount of guesswork involved in making the patterns.



For this helmet, the form is important because the leather will be stretched around it to get its smooth shape. Unfortunately I have decided it will be better in the long run to start over again by enlarging the patterns. The other option would be to cut down the form, but that risks destroying it, and rendering all my efforts for naught.

Defender: A New Steampunk Helmet

Time to start a new steampunk helmet/mask. This one has a working title of Defender. My last project—the underground explorer helmet—was met with much critical acclaim.



Since it started with pulling a pattern from a simple toy helmet, I have decided to use the same technique for the Defender's helmet. This time the form is a Darth Vader plastic helmet that I found at a yard sale.



Here I have covered half the helmet in two plus layers of masking tape, and marked with a felt pen where my seam lines will go.



These are the two patterns cut off of the helmet and laid down flat on cardboard. Next I will adjust these pieces so that they will work in leather, then cut the leather and handstitch all four pieces together.

Underground Explorer: Designing the Goggles

These giant sized paper glasses are my beginning attempt to work out the pattern for the goggles. This is going to take a lot of trial and error to get it right.

Pattern Drafting 101

The Spaceman Helmet
Above are several views of the collar that I wanted for the spaceman helmet. For the helmet itself I had the toy helmet to tape and pull a pattern from, but how do I come up with a pattern for the collar?

The illustrations above show the theory of attaching two flat pieces of leather together to form a three dimensional object. The silver objects are tubes which represent the helmet (or the crown of a hat). The gold objects represent the collar (or brim of a hat).
If we cut the collar in a donut shape with the inside hole having the same diameter as the tube, when attached the collar will be horizontal. If we cut the collar in a rectangle, when attached the collar will be vertical, ie. continue the lines of the tube.
Since the shape we want is somewhere in between these two extremes, we need to cut the collar in a large curve, as illustrated in the bottom drawing.

However, we don't want a collar that is uniformly angled down. Looking back at the first set of drawings we see that over the shoulders the angle needs to be closer to horizontal than vertical, whereas over the chest and back the angle needs to be closer to vertical than horizontal.
This final drawing shows the compromise made. Since the seams fall at the front and the back of the helmet wearer, the center of the pattern will be over the shoulders. And so, the middle is quite rounded (to make it more horizontal), while the two pattern ends are almost straight (to make them more vertical).