I started working on the colon for Jay today by cutting out a simple rectangle of 1/4″ foam. Ironically, we call this type of foam “crap” foam which I was not thinking about until I started writing the blog post. It simply had the right pore density for what I wanted.

I headed for the ventilation hood to Barge the edges of the foam. Barge is fantastic glue, designed for shoe makers, and has the winning combination of being incredibly strong and toxic. Mm-mm, good. It takes a minimum of five minutes to set, but is workable for up to four hours. Gotta love it.

Once it’s dry, I just had to pinch the edges together.

Ta-da! A tube o’ foam.

On to the “mouth” mech. Normally, I mill my own mechanisms, but in this case, I was looking at my tea-strainer and darn if the thing wasn’t the right size. So, I took the rivets out and popped it on the bandsaw to trim the front of it off.

Before turning the saw on, I played the game, “Know where your fingers are,” and decided to get a pusher so that I was not in such direct proximity to the blade in case things decided to shift.

Which they did. The first cut was a piece of cake. When I got to the second one, the blade caught it and tossed it across the room. I’ve still got no idea where the thing is. I’ll have to pick up a new one tomorrow and try again. With pliers this time, so I have a firm grip.

Though I wouldn’t normally start skinning a puppet until the mech is in place, because of how I’m doing this one, I can put the skin on and leave it loose at the end where the “mouth” will go. The biggest challenge here is that the seam is just going to show. I’m making it fairly organic, instead of a straight line. When the rest of the treatment is in place it will, hopefully, be fairly discreet.