Step 2.1) Past The Point Of No Return

I couldn’t quite bring myself to destroy that head I was so happy with (or those cute little Prawnling feet!) so I carefully removed them and set them aside for later…

I swear I’m not planning to eat them …

Then I stripped the rest of the sculpt down to the bare armature.

And no sooner had I pulled the last piece of clay off then I stood back and went “Oh god – what have I done?”

Couldn’t I have figured out a way to fix the proportions without taking everything apart?

Well, it was too late now. No way to go but forward!

One advantage of starting over would be that I could finally fix that not-quite-level back support beam.

So with all the clay and foil cleaned off I used a blow torch to soften the solder enough to pull the armature apart. (or most of it apart – you can see the pieces to the right).

Turns out that most of the copper connectors from the shoulder area were not reusable – they were either deformed from being pinched by the pliers I used to pull them apart, or they were so gunked up with solder and flux that they no longer fit together cleanly. So I had to go out and buy some new connectors (although I did manage to clean up a few of the older pieces after all).

I bought extras of everything this time – I had a good idea of how I was going to fix the shoulders and hips but if I was wrong I didn’t want to constantly be running back and forth to the hardware store.

Here I’m cutting the tiny pieces of pipe that will hold the connectors together.

I also decided I didn’t want to go the soldering route this time. It was finicky, I still wasn’t 100% comfortable with it, it was a pain to undo if I got it wrong, and it, as evidence by the first near disaster, it wasn’t the rock-solid bonding method I’d originally hoped for anyways.

So I asked my father if he had any recommendations. His only suggestion was some 5 Minute Epoxy (left). Next to the 5 Minute Epoxy at the Dollar Store was this repair putty (right). It was also supposed to work on metal so I decided to give it a go as well.

Here’s the putty stick. You cut off a piece and knead it together so that the inner grey part is mixed completely with the white outer part. You then have 5-6 minutes until the resulting putty hardens.

The epoxy meanwhile comes in a double syringe. You squeeze out an equal amount from both sides, mix them together and then have 5 minutes before it hardens.

So… I now had a couple ways to hold my new CJ armature together – I just had to figure out what shape that new armature would take!