Hey guys, it's Adam from Vsauce with another episode about Spacesuits this of course is my mercury suit, which I covered on tests and many years ago built in the late 50s and early 60s for American astronauts the first American astronauts the mercury 7 And based roughly off a mark for high altitude suit built by the US Navy This is often considered to be the first american space suit But it's not and as a collector of space suits and as a obsessive completest I've decided to replicate What is in fact the first space suit and that is and that? is and that is this bad boy wiley posts first space suit now that mercury suit was developed in the 50s and used in the late 50s and early 60s this Was used by wiley post to fly at impossible altitudes in 1934 and by impossible I mean altitudes that would have killed him because of the lack of oxygen he built the very first he built he built and Utilized the first pressure suit and that's what I'm going to replicate today We're gonna make the helmet never gonna make it out of fault. So clearly this is based on an early diving suit This is the same idea. Although it's pressure requirements are vastly different The attachment method is still quite similar in the same way that a diving bell helmet has large wing nuts attaching it to the suit Wiley posts suit that he flew and successfully had the same thing. It was a neck entry suit So that was the only seam and once he sealed it with what looks to me between 26 and 32 wing nuts. I Realized I've got to find some antique wing nuts And I found one this I found on eBay it cost me like I think 70 bucks for this one Okay, I might have gotten taken but it matches in every way the exact dimensions and shape of these from wiley post suit So Freddie here in the shop made a mold and cast up a whole bunch. So we're going to be a prepping these priming them and aestheticizing them for attachment to my helmet while I take care of the helmet construction my material of choice for the helmet is this PVA foam yeah, I was thinking about some other harder materials and then I thought oh this would be perfect and it actually might be almost comfortable funnily enough This is the technique championed by a friend of tested bill Duran who happens to be in the tested offices this very day I know that doesn't he's not gonna necessarily show up in this video, but you should know that he's nearby for patterning I'm bringing along a friend me luckily, I have this thing for making a perfect pattern from so I'm gonna start by making a pattern of the collar and also trying To figure out just how big this helmet Actually is from side to side It's it's bigger than it looks which is good because I want the ability to move my head around in there It's gonna get claustrophobic. Alright, here we go Already looks like a spacesuit but like from a Buck Rogers movie not from like reality I'm sorry. I bought a second I bought a second wingnut when I did this and To be honest, it might be a better wingnut in terms of the size I'm gonna try laying it out like that and see if I get this feels too crowded to me This is the right number of wingnuts, but it feels too crowded and I think I've got the size wrong. So I Had a backup, which is smaller. I'm going to prep these and lay them out Nice that's a pretty good distribution that Feels a lot better that looks a lot more like what I'm looking at Yeah, yeah, all right, I'm gonna shorten these just a tad I'm gonna shorten these down to about there Yeah Okay, right How many I'm going with that distribution, yep, so 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 woody Less than I imagined. Let's prep 24 So let's glue each one to that okay just with a dot a crazy glue there Okay, then once those are set and we're gonna do 24 of them. All right once those are set. I don't want you to take a Long board that holds all 24 put some double-stick tape down on it and then prime these all black and Then they'll be ready for aesthetics. Awesome. Sounds good fabulous. Here you go All right, so I've got the pattern for the neck ring and I'm gonna transfer that pattern to this Looks like 3/8 foam that I've got. I'm gonna make two layers of that one for the full neck and then one for the the border around it and then I'm gonna start making the The head surround this is tricky I'm working with this sheet of worbla here because I'm the dimensionality of the black foam is actually problematic for me for my helmet part and The worbla may give me exactly what I want here. Let's see here. Oh, that's No, no so clearly. That's no good Let's crack it open a bit Drops laughs that's terrible. That's no good. That's two times. Ah Yeah, this is gonna have to be comfort base and then we'll base the rest of it off of that Let's see Dad said that's much better That sounds really weird, doesn't it? Yeah Different movie this one's reality Whenever you're gluing it never hurts to add some tooth To what you're gluing that means to add some dimension I've put little scratches into the plastic that's places for the glue to hold on to the plastic and You can never have too much tooth. It's great This is what I call a mission-critical joint the whole costume rests on this joint of the helmet Ergo I'm going to use two applications of contact cement One right after the other that'll just give me a lot more grab for this The trick with contact cement is to make sure that you've coated both sides of your equation of the joint that you're gluing and That you've gotten it dry enough. You don't want it to be too tacky That means it's still kind of wet You wanted to have flashed off most of its solvent but after 2 hours It's actually flashed off so much you won't be able to glue it anymore So you've got this limited amount of time two hours is a rough figure. It's different for different contact cements The simple thing is you want it to be tacky but not sticky That's the real trick This is called dry transferring I use a piece of paper to cover up most of the glue scene in order to get it started and then that allows me the ability to finesse that seam Without going too far and I pull out the paper Out of the way of that seam come on come on That's pretty good. Yep. Yep. Okay. Da da da so I have to This is also not far off of how Lord Buckethead made his bucket head I would guess whose Lord bucket head. Oh Just my heroes It's a nice tall bucket, so I've got a lot of room to mess it up That's Yeah, I started all right, let's see here Oh Clearly clearly I need to recut this Excellent bellissimo Just a hole for the neck now that I've got this now I can start to look at That is that about the distance. Yeah that and That yeah, that's what the same and then down here That is feeling like what I'm looking for now Now I have that I need its border Right. Yeah, I do so Come and do this drink Drink and draw this border Hey, okay, let us join them Before I glue on the outer ring, I want to get it to fit the shape of me that way When I do all my gluing of this to this to this to this it all stays together right Right. Yeah, exactly Preach it brother. Okay, here we go now It's starting to look like a thing Do I say that on every bill? I'm pretty sure I do It's always the point at which I get the most excited When what I'm making really does start to look like? Think so. I'm feeling pretty good about that. Now the trick is Here it's welded And this isn't made of aluminum. So, how am I gonna weld it well, I will show you This is how I'm making my weld. Yep hot glue welds. So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna make it look like a weld Hold on. Let's just see how Messy a weld it is oh It's a good and messy weld, that should be fun. Okay, here we go Start at the back simply because you don't want to practice on the heroes side I'm merely using the compressed air to blow the Heat away from the hot glue to set it quickly because I want it to be structural there And I succeeded Hot glue is so thermally reactive. I mean it's a thermal base glue So it definitely expands and contracts a lot with the heat It makes it pour for rigid surfaces, but holy hell if you can grab two sides of something with hot glue And you've got some truth to it You can hold a lot together with it. I Guess I guess I should just try it right? All right, here we go Dude dude, that's awesome. All right Forehead Nice Yeah, that's actually pretty darn good Great The tricky part about this circle is that it's not circular on the surface of this tube Right. It's a projection of a circle onto the tube which means that out at the extent that Let's say I'm at nine o'clock here. The nine o'clock is more oval It's more oval in the nine and three direction because it's a projection against Yeah, so that's the tricky part here Let's make sure I can see out of it Color me relieved Look at that And I'd go into how exciting and awesome it is to have this there we go. Oh, that's not that bad I can move my head around in here. Yeah Hello, everyone. Yeah. Alright, okay so now Now I need this thing which is Okay, so this is let's see Oh Yeah, look at that We are coming along. I cannot believe he flew a plane four hours in a helmet like this That is an intense an intense bit of scientific testing Wiley Post Hey, I did some work while you weren't looking yeah, I did I came in really early this move This is some of this sometimes how this goes I came in really early this morning because I wanted to get a coat of white PVA glue Onto this because I wanted to get to painting by the end of today So I did some final hot glue work. I slump molded the the cap and This was made by actually taking a shape out of MDF Heating up this worbla Which is a thermal plastic and then slumping it into here to get the right shape and the shape of the original suit Yeah, that shape is pretty uneven. So like I wasn't too worried about it being a little lumpy. I think it's perfect that's hot glued in then I gave this whole thing a coat of primer and then I gave it a coat of white glue and we're doing great but it's time to talk about some of the ancillary parts like sticking out of this side of The the suits face is a little barbed fitting And I made that on the lathe this morning That's just a piece of resin that I laid and then I cut it a 45 and glued it at a right angle And then put a little quarter-twenty nut on there. So that goes in there. I made this out of resin I mean, obviously you can buy these out of brass, but I didn't want a lot of weight out in front of my face I just like, you know Costume weight is a thing and every place you can eliminate it You should so I made that and then there's also at the other side is this guy and this is beautiful They still make these I was able to buy one on Amazon. But again, it's solid brass. It's too heavy so yesterday Freddie cast me this one and Freddie made all the castings of the wingnuts around here and so now while I finish up the last details on this and get them right Freddie is going to be adding some rub and buff to the metal parts of this because I'm gonna paint this and then I'm gonna do the final assembly to Get it. All right. So Freddie, how's it going over here? Pretty good Awesome there's that so these two bad boys get brass rubbin buff And then all of these guys get a steel rubbin buff. Let me bring over the drawer. Yeah I don't know if I have it go ahead and take a look This is all the tubes are rubbing the buffer here take a look and see if I don't have a dark steel That's totally fine. I don't need one. We could just darken it with a wash Evany no You know kind of what they should look like we've got the picture as reference I want to look like actually I want them to look pretty close to the original, you know, like this finish gotcha that kind of Modeled dirty patina beat-up exactly. So uh, yeah you got your work cut out for you. Have fun good Ol number one goes here All number two I'm gonna do the first test drill in the back. So if I screw it up Not bad Easy peasy Am I forgetting anything here. Oh, right? Yes. Yes. I am forgetting There's that bad right there okay, let's Sit here looks kind of like that, doesn't it? It does It looks kind of just like that. Oh Nice Alright so if that is that great great great You look like it's like a it's like a little nut with threads and a hex on it and I had in my box My log jam a little nut with hex on it. It's like it's like perfect Like a prophecy fulfilled. Yeah. Okay, so Actually even that's even better because it's lower profile Oh fantastic. Oh, I'm so psyched, okay Yes Valve, okay I'm gonna give this thing another coat of paint and then I'm actually gonna give it few more clips of some paint to kind of Even out its texture That's perfect when you put everything in a little bit of silver that is beautiful lovely So I ran into some difficulties with a white glue This is the first time I've used it to coat a whole project like foam Smith's do like Bill Duran and I ended up with some drip ease and they really Shattered the illusion that this is made of steel So I'm just giving it some successive coats of matte paint and sanding down the drippy details as I see them before giving it its final coat of gloss paint and It's not a perfect surface by any means So I'm not being super Precious about it, but it can't look like there's strips. That's all I don't know about you, but I'm really pleased with how well this is turning out Nice now, I'm gonna want it to spin so I need a lazy susan In order to be able to whether this helmet and add some other colors without messing up the underlying silver I'm sealing it with an all clad Lacquer all clad to lacquer gloss clear coat ALC 310. Yeah Provides a really robust clear coat and it doesn't mess up the silver Well, it did actually mess up the silver a little bit made it just a tiny bit less shiny, but I can live with that It wasn't a chrome finish to begin with and actually as this lacquer is drying it is getting shinier, but It will provide me a really nice robust coat to weather against I'm going to do a little masking for this outer ring I'm just I know I should wait for the paint to get drier But I'm too impatient It's kind of my thing I'm impatient All right Oh That's very subtle but that's what I'm going for That's exactly right to me that feels like just the right kind of difference. I Can't even tell you how hard it is for me with all the wingnuts sitting there painting and brass parts and the other stuff Not to attach it. All right now. Oh really want to attach it? But I won't down the state chill Complaining Come on Don't There we go This technique that I've done of painting many of the parts separately and putting them back together After painting it's a really really great way to add a lot of value to your paint job And now I'm really just going through and looking for areas That should be dirty but aren't and then also looking for kind of like those artifacts of use that Kind of tell the story So anything that's a little too shiny I just say I hit it and I give it a little dirt stain And if it doesn't work, I pull it back off again But I leave a little dirt cuz you can't quite always pull it back off That's just an ongoing. Oh I'm having trouble not cursing my pleasure right now. This this is So exceeding my hopes and dreams about how this would look I'm also starting to add in a little bit of raw umber, which doesn't do much But if you look here and you see I'm gonna I'm gonna scrape some raw umber and in here, right? Just kind of give it a little bit and then I go in with my finger and it just sort of Actually, it's a little too much I can pull something back It just sort of warms it up a little makes it look a little you know dirt is never one color. Oh Yeah, there you are Feels it feels more right. I'm holding to the object itself Now oh man so good so happy with this Right the last thing is to put in the acrylic visor And then to try it on I Will have the ability to pipe air into here and keep my face cool Keep your face cool, man Let's see if I can do it again, here we go. Nope Ladies and gentlemen The first one day build associated with 2018 comic-con San Diego costume Wiley Post's helmet This is actually not bad at all. I have a very clear field of view It's totally easy to see in here. I can move some air through here through this Through this port right here This is fantastic, I'm very pleased just race All right, I'm gonna walk the floor of kamekona's wiley post a helmet isn't enough I Am gonna need to make the suit that goes with the helmet the boots and the gloves are being dealt with separately We'll bring those in at the end of this build But for right now, I have to make all the soft parts and in order to do that I'm gonna use some of this cotton duck canvas It's got the texture that I need there is a bit of quilting to to wiley posts suit and that was actually by design it was Crosshatch squares what they I think was later called link Netting was a way to hold the rubber bladder inside in its proper orientation so it couldn't expand so I'm gonna start by car by making patterns and then quilting those patterns and then assembling them into the arms the torso and the legs and Wiley's suit the innovation he made what not an innovation because this is how diving suits work at the time is its neck Entry you entered the suit through this hole in the neck and I'm going to do the same thing Let's see. What else is there to cover? Oh, right. He included metal rings at the elbows and the knees I'm gonna do the same thing. I'm just gonna use this eighth inch welding wire as those rings I'm gonna wrap around them probably with some of the canvas and some velcro And then there's some final leather work to do on the outside. It's just a long day of sewing it's ahead of us That's what's that's what's about to happen Draw on myself I'm gonna need to draw upon myself so yeah, I Guess I should yeah. I'm I'm averse to drawing on this mannequin because I have yet to really mess it up But I guess here's how we do it. Yeah, there we go Maybe I'll give it a coat of paint later someday so when I built the helmet I Built it with Velcro on the inside of The neck piece and that's to match up with velcro that will go on the suit that I am currently making So I'm gonna put this guy aside. That's the Neck entry hole that will be there And we'll go from there All right There is a lot more to this suit than meets the eye it is not just a cotton tunic There are a lot of chunks to take care of first and foremost There is this 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 7 stitch quilted band that goes from the front chest to the back So I'm gonna get that one first Slowly make - actually it looks like I should probably do this pattern first because this goes all the way to the shoulders Yeah, we did that one first, okay How best - oh, this is great. Okay, I think I've Come to an understanding here. I'm gonna grab a bucket Hope from my bathroom It was like how am I gonna transfer the pattern of the inside of the helmet to the cloth and I realized I Can put it on to a bucket like this And To it like that, right, right Great great Mm-hmm. I see hmm Right width So first I want to sew these darts I got a new toy a thread snipper just for doing this on the sewing machine doink So much better than dragging out two big scissors It sliced nice and flat Does I'm happy with that. Okay, so now We trim Wait, what's the front? Yeah, let's start in the back. Let's start where you can't see that's a great idea Shoulders have little darts that go across them I'm gonna cut this piece and this piece will be I'm there, huh? That's gonna be just about 60 inches. Cool I won't be able to attach it on to this thing because I won't be able to get it back off of this thing but that tells me roughly how Yeah, that's me. I don't have to measure it again on me All right to sewing Sleeves just up to here This problem. Is this not me this is this is clothing So I have to get this to wrap around in the right way and then to wrap around And this stuff is quilted, all right okay time to make a pattern or two All right, so This there's a lot going on so I'm gonna This has clothes on it. So I can't quite build something tight to it into the armpits. So I've sort of mocked up the The top part here and let's just see if I can't Get this on my body and confirm My measurements, let's also hope that I don't get Pierced by any of these needles that's not bad That was one of the reasons for doing this. Let's do bring this up here and figure out where it goes, which is Right about there. Yeah, that seems pretty nice pretty straightforward. Oh Alright well We may end up adding a zipper that's just all there is to that so clearly clearly what goes on here is that there would be a Tunic for me that comes basically to fill this portion Today's Quilted spacesuit comes courtesy of a metric crap ton of bobbins. I don't mean to get technical on you But I need my my bobbin winder has Its little pressure wheel has just slowly deteriorated over time So now I'm trying to figure out if I can replace that pressure wheel with something else That looks like it'll do I See It goes through this top hole Then through the tensioner and then through the bottom hole That's I was just about to do that with my finger. And then I saw that there was already a thing for it Alright so so I've this has a This has a setting it sticks at okay right there and if you hold on to the end when you start You want to just guide it so it look at that Bingo there's one down so all of these all right We're getting somewhere let's cut out some more Muslim All right, I'm gonna try putting this on Let's try it It's starting to look like something I Just tell right now this is gonna be awesome, but I have to get out of this thing, hold on Yeah, I'm just gonna have to run a zipper straight up the back a nice big white zipper Do I have one? Yeah, haha Look at that I Love Obsessively buying things. I think I'll need one day and then meeting them I'm gonna do that. Am I gonna do that? Yeah, it's better than yeah Reasonably straight cut Next I guess was to quilt this puppy, right? Yeah. I got a quilt and I got a Yeah, I got a quilt it Quilters I Respect you Yeah, this is harsh. This is the hard work man I've already gone through something like Probably a dozen bobbins Yeah easily. I'm about to use up my first full spool of thread I don't ever use of a full spool of thread on a single project. Damn I've made a lot of clothes in my time. I've made a lot of different things I have sewn Hundreds of miles of thread and yet still I am such a beginner. I The way a sleeve joins to a torso is still absolute magic to me I'm going through like six or eight layers of this canvas at once right here I'm very pleased with how my machine is responding to all of this Its handling it like a champ Ladies and gentlemen We ended up with no bunching. No bunching. Nope, you know what? I mean? That's totally I'm so psyched All right lifting lifting getting it out of there Dudes and dudettes I Am pleased with the straitjacket I'm apparently making Now I still can't get in the neck of this thing can I Let's see, let's see Oh good god, that is like claustrophobic The thing is I can open it up a little bit more does not sure how much So now I take another pass and do the bottom of the velcro All right there is The top and a lot of little thready threads to clean up but I've put in the velcro which means I can now that which means I've removed as much of the neck as I don't need and Now I'm just gonna wonder one more time if I can make this a neck entry costume Just make things a lot easier if I could do that Oh We're going with the zipper, yep, we're going with the zipper There's just there's only a few people in the world Who will know? That that's not accurate to wiley post suit unday, forgive me so Go put this back in here I'm gonna slice this puppy right up his backside Mm kind of hurts, doesn't it? All right time to break out Ladies and gentlemen, I'm very pleased with that zipper Here's what I now need to make I need to make some shorts Technically what I've got here Okay quick kick wait til what's going on here but right so it's Yeah, there we go something like that right right I Can't believe this is actually working That is astounding okay. So if these guys do this and These guys yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I Can always take the sin later or add some bunching I mean lord knows there's plenty of structure on this costume I just kind of intuited how to make these by looking at my own genes Seem like a reasonable place to start Front and center is falling in the front and center And is non-trivial with round soft shapes meeting each other Some of these pins are colossal a dirty, but that's okay the custom itself Will be dirty Here's a question. I'm wondering about What is the gender-neutral term for seamstress Seamster seems tricks I I You know I'm a bro who sews so I don't want to it feels sexist just to say seamstresses to someone who sews but I don't have a you know, I Don't know. It's a good question. It's an open question. It's probably not an open question for me a settled question I just don't know the answer Sometimes the lack of institutional knowledge Is an advantage right now, it feels like a hindrance By institutional knowledge. I simply mean someone who would ever have taught me Sort of way to think through the order of operations Of sewing a garment like this. It's it's confusing. Okay Holy cow have I really yeah, I've kind of done this haven't I so, uh Let's see here Dudes and dudettes This is like the bathing suit 1902 I'm not showing too much skin All right, I'm gonna try the helmet on We are getting there This is a good place to stop today, although all one-day builds take longer than a day. All right here again it is all over but for the weathering so the form of My wiley post suit is complete It now just needs to look old because it looks way brand new I'm gonna do the old I'm gonna do the Olding I'm gonna do the weathering in two passes I'm gonna do a sort of very light yellow pass which I'm gonna Deepen in some yellow spots and then I'm gonna add some brown spots I think that should bring it to where I want it I'm gonna get the helmet near it so I can see it all at the same time Yeah Let's make some acrylics We're gonna airbrush some ink on this. Yep Just like so awesome Very pleased with this at first I had it a little too red a little too much red in some of the colors I chose but now now I can see that I've got Now I've got it yellower and that feels better it feels More correct? I'm just looking for any spots that kind of look like They could use a little bit more It's really easy when doing weathering to overdo To overdo the regularity and the thing about weathering is There are always spots that are weirder Right, like what is that? I don't know. What did he do? They spill a cup of coffee on a mission? I don't know but that part is That's a stain And that's more realistic Yeah See how that to see what that does. That's really cool. I love this All right, I Think it's time to put it on. Yeah, it's been drying here for about half an hour. I Think the color is really good. I'm very pleased with the overall Wash I am gonna dirty it up a little bit more over the next few weeks before Comic Con But I'm I'm really pleased with this time to put it on Dudes I Am really really pleased with how this looks I like how it feels it's not too warm It's actually it's this is fabulous
That's awesome. I thought the helmet was a lot of work, and then he got to the suit itself...
And this one-day build took what, a week?
I always enjoy watching his thought processes as he works through problems. In this case, though, his guess-and-check way of working through patterning had me a little frustrated after getting used to Kamui Cosplay's duct tape method - it could have been so easy!
Watched the whole thing. It ended so suddenly! But awesome video as usual, and 100% artisan. Adam is a master at prop and replica building and has insane amounts of skill and experience. Always seems like people in the comments argue over that fact. Fite me bro.