Can I Build a Corset Entirely of Wood?

Oh, I should take my hair down shouldn't I? That would be the glamorous thing... I don't feel like a cool beauty model... How did I do? Hey everyone and welcome to my channel! In case you're new around here my name is Xyla and I am an engineer I am a occasional woodworker and I am a stripper no not that kind of stripper this kind of stripper but because we're in quarantine and everyone is excessively bored I was scrolling through Instagram and I saw on Paul Jackman's story like a wooden t-shirt challenge that they were joking about doing but obviously not actually gonna do because that would be dumb except then I was like whoa I have all of these leftover bits of cedar from building my canoe and they bend and it would be kind of fun to make something wearable out of them but like t-shirt has sleeves that's a lot of work so then my weird train of thought was like whoa what if I made a cedar strip corset? Yeah! And you're at this point probably like why why did it click on this video but you're here and I'm gonna take you on this journey of building a useless cedar strip corset to build the form to fit the corset on I'm gonna model it on my own body so that I can wear it because I don't know anyone else stupid enough to wear a cedar strip corset and so I that's why I'm wearing a tank top is so that I can basically take body measurements but unlike a seamstress who would just wrap a tape measure on my body I actually need the right shape so that when the wood molds to that form and I pull it off it'll look like clap back around my body in the right shape so that makes sense but this is the least springy wire I could find so I'm basically going to it we're gonna ignore the fact that I haven't shaved my armpits the middle the pandemic we're in quarantine leave me alone I'm gonna use the side seams of my tank top as like my guidelines because they pretty much write down like halfway down the sides of my body okay if this part doesn't make sense I'm just gonna voice over in post because I don't think I'm making very much sense right now yeah so it didn't make sense basically if you were to imagine the side profile of my body as a line on a graph I took the inflection points which are five it was kind of like the top of the breast the middle the bottom I think there are seamstress words for those that I know and then the waistline and the hips and I marked I like put the wire around my body and got the shape of those spots specifically then I traced it onto paper cut out that shape and that I could trace that shape onto a MDF form cut that out and that would be my final form hopefully that made more sense all right so I now have all of my form pieces it's like a sewing pattern but it makes a lot less sense so this is half of my body with a half of a 2x4 cut out of it in exactly the spot like where my spine meets the side seam the idea behind that was that then all of these forms will be lined up correctly and it won't be like the body roll happening mid corset we've now migrated to the floor I'm gonna trace all my form pieces onto this piece of MDF that I bought our new people today all right I'm about to jigsaw out this which means that I gotta get safe much better so it's jigsaw out my form pieces I started with the middle which is always a good technique because then you're cutting a small thing out of a very large thing instead of a thing out of a smaller thing so I drill holes in all the four corners for the 2x4 and then trim it so that it sits nice and tight and flush in there and then I just drilled holes on each side of the gaps in the channels that go around the outside of the form and what those are for are for a clamping to when we're stripping later on next I cut the 2x4 that would be the spine of my form and then built little holders for each end of it next it's time to assemble the disks of the board onto the spine so I used to buy for theit split into two by twos on the typify which means that there's two square sides and basically just use them in blocks wearing every single section of the build so that I knew everything was nice and square all right so there is now a form and I think that means that I'm ready to start stripping so I'm not gonna say that this project was more difficult than the commute because it absolutely was not but the stripping process was because the bends were far more complex than anything I knew because Dolph convinced down like Mulder so I made some kindling but eventually I figured it out it turns out that Wayland scribble over steam was not enough that gets you a little bit of Bend but not enough to make these compound curves and I had to actually individually steam box every single strip clamp it down let it dry and then do the next strip clamp it down let it dry and then once it's dry I could glue those two strips together and then repeat that process through the entire corset in the entire tutorial and the friendly tip from your neighborhood stripper is to always masking tape the edges of your forms so that you don't flu your piece to the floor because it would really really suck to finish stripping out a beautiful piece of art and then have it glued permanently to your form in case you don't believe me about every single piece that have been steamed for at least 20 minutes there you go ignore the clashing sweat dirty pants eventually got to the point where the bends were just impossible each strip had to bend in and sideways so much that they were all breaking so eventually I put half a piece on and then cut little triangles just like real corsets honestly I didn't really talk about it since I mostly talked about it in my canoe video which is when you took right there if you want to check it out but these are beaten Cove joinery so because the bead is pointing down in this shot I was able to just carve a bead on once the front path was completely stripped I went over it with a curved card scraper to clean off any glue bumps or irregularities and then hit it with the random orbital sander and then to get any little details I couldn't reach with the random orbital sander I went in with the detail sander on an oscillating tool and I sanded and I sanded and I sanded woodworking is like 99% sanding all right so now this has been sanded I'm ready to fiberglass I have this scrap of fiberglass from when I did the canoe and it is I think just barely wide enough and just like I would on a cedar strip canoe I cut the fiberglass to size trimmed it and then I carefully wiped over it with my hands to get it to conform to the shape so that I wouldn't be pulling on it with my spatula so what's so cool about fiberglassing is that it fiberglass mat pretty much has the same refractive index as clear epoxy which means that when clear epoxy soaks through it it doesn't bend light as it passes through it just allows the light to pass directly through the mixture and that's how it's completely clear over wood and here's something every boat builder knows is that a couple hours after you clear epoxy and it's still green that was the best time to trim off the excess fibreglass because the knife just cuts through it like butter and it's so satisfied once that epoxy is dry I go in with another coat of epoxy and it takes about four coats to completely bury the lead and when you can't see the texture of the fiberglass at all anymore that's when you can sand it and you know that you'll never see the fiberglass weave again you just like that it's time to strip the back the back was pretty much the same process as the front but a little bit easier because the bend from the center outwards it wasn't as aggressive I just chose to make a pretty open back so because you've already seen this I'm going to fly once the back to panels were saying it smooth it was time to fiberglass those as well exact same process once all the fiberglassing is done we give the epoxy a final sanding and this will take out any lumps any irregularities in the fiberglass or in the epoxy and make sure that the varnish has a nice smooth base to go onto to work out the shape to cut this too I've literally just checked it to a bathroom mirror and Giroux on the shape on one side and then I copied it over to the other side maybe not the most scientific way to do it but it's art doesn't have to be scientific once my lines were drawn where I wanted them I just took it over to the scroll saw and cut it out then I went in with a dremel and cleaned up all the edges to get them nice and smooth especially in that little tiny V where I can't get in with sandpaper this right here is my shot to get the lines exactly where I want them and I got pretty close to symmetrical but it's maybe just a demon while I was at it I cleaned up the inside to make it smooth and not splintery for the where and decided to fiberglass-reinforced certain areas so the bottom where it's getting a lot of strain and also the sides where the laces will get then those just rinse and repeat that entire process for the back with the exception being that I fitted it on the floor and then i fiberglass-reinforced wear those laces go as well so I decided that I did want to lace the front D but I didn't want to drill the wood itself so I made these little loops out of a cut-up old piece of lanyard and then I hot-glued them down gently and then epoxy them and fiberglass over them to make it smooth and strong to varnish I'm going to be very appropriately using lust by total butt and I'm doing it in satin because it's a corset no but I didn't I didn't want like a high-gloss boat like finish on this wanted like a more fabric a matte look anyway let's get to it I'd never forget to wear a respirator while burnishing this stuff is bad for your lungs I'm garnishing this using the exact same techniques I use on a canoe you go all in one direction with the grain down and then crosshatch it and go the other direction to make sure you're filling in any gaps and then you tip it which is where you brush lightly with the brush over to take out any air bubbles in the direction you went in first okay first of all look how gorgeous this finishes like this became my new favorite varnish all of a sudden but I did use two coats and that made it even nicer then it was just time to drill holes for the laces and I used a stop block on the back of the drill press so that each of the poles was the same distance all right it is the moment of truth time see what it actually looks like throughout this process I've been putting it on my Instagram which is ads I love fox Lin and asking people to vote like what shape so like this shape was picked picked by my Instagram followers as well as what kind of laces and it was a pretty resounding leather so I'm gonna lace this up with leather laces and then we'll all right so I got it laced at least the sides at least no idea how I'm gonna figure out how to loosen that and it totally fit like I did line the inside with fabric pouch to make it a little bit more comfortable and even though the inside was sanded it was a little bit scratchy so this totally went that made that problem go away and actually it's like surprisingly comfortable and you know mobilities not that bad it's not that horrible yeah funny it's my birthday cuz I gotta say dancing you could be the first in the second and a third than the rest as a junior I work at darling so fast baby I will show you how give me some attitude baby if you liked this video please don't hesitate to click that subscribe button click the little bell and let me know in the comment section below also please follow me on Instagram and on Twitter and I also have a patreon if you would like to support what I do thank you and

Channel: Xyla Foxlin

Views: 880,474

Keywords: wooden, corset, woodworking, maker, cosplay, warrior, princess

Id: lEvSG3_pvLE

Length: 15min 16sec (916 seconds)

Published: Fri May 08 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Bones_IV]

This is /u/flyingrobotgirl. She posted it on /r/woodworking as well.

[u/Reldey]

Oh man it's like the wooden shirts from Dave

[u/Reddit-Incarnate]

damn i think her clips and clamps are worth more than my entire workshop. Fucking epic work though super silly and cool. Really well put together.

[u/qsysmine]

This is very r/unbgbbiivchidctiicbg

[u/roundearthervaxxer]

<3 great 👍

[u/Pitchfork_Wholesaler]

That was sweet!

[u/BenedictArnoldbatch]

As a reminder, you can advance a single frame in YouTube with the period key, and rewind by a single frame using the comma key.

[u/lucyxariel]

Indigenous excellence 🥰

[u/Mimigirl7]

Corset are so uncomfortable but one made of wood. Good luck with that ouch!