The Head Exoskeleton Is Connected To The Neck Exoskeleton...

So after a lot of running back and forth I finally hit upon an armature alignment I was happy with – albeit one that was a little more asymmetrical than I was expecting/hoping for. Unfortunately, due to the fact that you can’t buy a 4-way pipe connector, there wasn’t a way to get everything lined up properly solely by fitting the pipe pieces together – this design depended on gluing not just for stability but to actually form the design in the first place.

I mainly used putty for the shoulder/neck configuration. The tape is to show me where to line up the two pieces – the edge of the tape is meant to line up with the edge of the T-connector.

Connecting the back support (the horizontal piece on the right) to CJ’s “spine”. The T-piece on the back support will actually form the sockets for CJ’s shoulder pieces. The support beam and the spine did not line up perfectly but this could be corrected by adjusting the length of the shoulder pieces later.

The translucent strip is clear hockey tape – it’s helping pull everything together tightly while the putty sets.

The neck piece being set in place. This gives you a clearer idea of how the back support is just slightly out of alignment.

(Yes, perhaps I could have fixed it if I COMPLETELY dismantled everything and started absolutely from scratch, but I was a little discouraged at this point so I was drawing the line. The problem was fixable - one shoulder piece would have to be slightly longer than the other – so I was not going to stress out over it)

You can see here where the putty comes in handy to fill in gaps and generally make the whole thing more stable.

However, to act as reinforcement you can see where I liberally wrapped the shoulder area in electrical and hockey tape.

Here I’m using epoxy to hold the hips in place.

I had troubles before with CJ’s legs and arms coming apart at the knees/elbows. This time around I still didn’t want his limbs permanently attached to his torso but I also didn’t want them falling apart on me every time I moved them. So I decided to epoxy them together into single pieces. Here you can see where I’ve marked a knee so that everything gets glued together in the proper alignment.

Well… we’re getting there.