New External Frame – MYOG

[Eric Fitz]

Have you thought about making a mold of your lower back and hips that you could then use to form a fiberglass/carbon fiber/heat formed plastic hip belt or harness? What I am thinking is that if you can make a hard cast of yourself you could make a form fitting belt and possibly eliminate a lot of padding.

Having a torso mold would make sizing packs easier I would imagine.

There are lots of life casting tutorials on the net.

Sorry if this has been mentioned already elsewhere.

[Kevin Egelhoff]

Eric,
Those were pretty much along the lines of what I had planned. I have casting plaster coming in to form the mold and then plan on trying to make the tooling off that.

Hope to post some good photos soon!

Kevin

[Eric Fitz]

Kevin, Very cool. Cant wait to see how it comes together.

Ever since I had a computer body scan at Brooks Brothers in NY and saw my body in wireframe 3D I've been thinking about how many different ways you can put this to use.

For a business I was considering taking 3D body scans and cutting them from foam using 3 axis CNC and then coating them with polyurea to give them a hard surface. How cool would it be to have a human form for custom clothing and gear? I think cool, but I'm into the tech side of it.

With a good form you could vacuum form a piece of plastic very easily to produce a secondary form that could be sent a custom pack builder or otherwise.

Some of my thoughts around using a form like this come from watching my sister build prosthetics and body braces for injuries etc. I've seen people who have a hard plastic torso brace that makes them look like a human hard suitcase. clasps and all.

[Kevin Egelhoff]

Casting material JUST came in BUT I wouldn't have to make a mold off my body IF I had a foam back/torso !!! If only they existed. I'm sure making them wouldn't be cheap either!
I'm going more for the generic approach as I plan on doing at least a 1.0" offset to the mold to try and make it fit more bodies and give some room for the "air pad" as Bill states. If I can make the shape close enough to form fitting, I'm thinking you could use a lot less padding as you shouldn't have as many hot spots? We will see ??

[Paul Tree]

I was going to say use plastering strips to make a mold, reinforce it, and use expanding foam sealant to cast 2 halves?

One small problem is that your body is in a different position without a pack, especially if laying down to make the molds.

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