037 - Hodge Podge

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Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Welcome to the nerd Poll team.Welcome to the Maker's Method podcast here on
the New York Party Number Tim yourhost Darren Moser aka Doctor sci Fi,
and I'm joined here as always byDarren Gunn of Van Outs Props. And

(00:23):
we are back. I don't knowif you noticed we were out last week.
You know, sometimes the building godssay you will be busy and you
do not have time to record yourfavorite podcast. But we knew that you
knew that we were still there workingin the background, flipping the switches,

(00:45):
tightening the bolts, and standing alwaysstanding. That was it. We got
buried under a pile of sanding.I'm sure. Well, look, we
can't hold our listeners to a standardthat we can't hold ourselves too because full
transparency. We both kind of wentoops, oh yeah, it was like

(01:07):
Friday of last week, and I'mlike, oh, yeah, we kind
of missed our third Tuesday recording session. I guess, well, I don't
know dare us, but yeah,he gets in the way. And it
is a busy time of the yearfor both of us and for many of
you. That's right, we aresliding into concrunch territory. You are still

(01:30):
working on your costume. I'd loveto hear about how that's going for celebration.
I'm still working on droid upgrades,and I think I remember saying,
now we are on the other sideof my week long staycation. I think
I remember saying, maybe on thisshow, maybe on social media, that
I wasn't going to panic until afterthat week and judging how much I got

(01:53):
done. So we'll reveal my paniclevel a little later in the show.
But yeah, how is your LoneSoldier you post Empire build going? It
is coming along slowly, but surely. There's a lot of standing still to

(02:15):
be done, mainly because last weeks, well the last two weeks worth of
project videos where I built the Gonkdroid that's also a projector, ended up
taking a bit longer than I expected, mainly because I just kind of got
caught up in all of the detailsand wanting to make it as good as

(02:37):
I possibly could. And it looksbeautiful the weathering on it, it looks
so in Universe, and you youkind of have to go hard on weathering
for a Star Wars thing, likeit doesn't look Star Wars without it,
for sure. So I'm a littlebit behind on that front and ran into

(03:00):
some kind of weird curing issues forthe for the grieves, the shin pieces,
I decided to coat them with XTCthree d um you know, brushable
epoxy, and it did not turnout quite how I was hoping. I

(03:23):
think my measurement may have been slightlyoff, which created kind of a problem
that needs to be fixed. Butyou know, aside from that, the
the hard parts are coming along.The soft goods, for the most part,

(03:46):
are purchased and in hand, andthe poncho is in the ohso capable
hands of my new friend al Us, who is making all of my gin
or so concept art poncho dreams areality. So I'm super excited about how

(04:15):
that's coming along. She is sendingme update pictures every day or so,
so that part's really exciting. Ponchosare great ponchos and capes. I've seen
some local members of the Fible Firstwho have officers and they will make and

(04:35):
I really want to do this formy officer, especially since it's the black
warrant officer is They'll add the rogueone poncho, which is kind of like
a overtop that kind of comes downa bit you have the ranked plaque on
it and just looks so cool.I mean, I mean, it doesn't
rain hardly ever where we live,like, we do not have extreme weather

(04:57):
except for heat, So practice calityzip but awesome loutness and looking cool you
know eleven. So yeah, Ihave to make one of those. Eventually.
When I first tried the poncho on, I thought, wow, this
is heavy. This might have beena bad decision. And then when Alice

(05:24):
came by the shop to do thefitting, and it was one of the
first days this year that's been inthe hundreds and I had it on standing
outside and I thought, this isnot as bad as I thought it would
be, okay, And I forgetwho I was speaking to about it on

(05:46):
Instagram, but their response was basically, you know, when you're in the
desert, you don't see a bunchof people running around in shorts. They're
all covered up. That's true,as you're trying to prevent the sun from
hitting your skin. So even thoughthe poncho is made of a heavy canvas,

(06:08):
it's doing what it's supposed It's absorbingthe heat before it gets to your
body exactly. But you know whereshe's doing a lot of modification to it
and shortening it considerably, which workedout really well because she's now able to
take a lot of that excess fabricand repurpose it to add in more decorative

(06:32):
elements to it, pockets and stripsand pockets straps, and you know,
I've got the droid caller that Iwas that the cell phone charge your pack
into, so that'll have a niceplace on the poncho. And yeah,

(06:54):
this should be pretty good. I'mreally excited to see how it all turns
out. Oh yeah, that's that'sawesome. And yeah, and it sounds
like you're a good chunk along.You know. At the time of this
recording, we're about four and ahalf weeks away from the week of celebration,

(07:15):
so that's you know, it's Ithink personally in my mind when we
hit May, like even though thelast week of April is still like a
month away or less than a monthaway, May feels ten times closer when
it's May first than when it's likeApril something ormed. So so yeah,

(07:39):
So, like as I stated before, I will now reveal my fear factor
for working on K two. Andno, it's not it's not that bad.
I did get a good amount doneduring the break. I had a
stay at home vacation this last week, and while it was a little more
busy than I was originally expecting,but I had a lot of fun and

(08:03):
actually felt rested at the end ofthe vacation. It wasn't one of those
I need a vacation from my vacationto actually rest, which we've all taken
those, and they're we keep takingthem even though we don't enjoy it when
we're done. And obviously I'm notstressed enough to not start new projects because
apparently, you know, you getan idea in your head and you're just

(08:26):
like, well, I could justprototype that on the laser real fast,
and why not. And now Ihave a third you know, give away
little a little bit of swags,and I have three things that I'm kind
of slowly making quantities of to giveaway at celebration and barter with. And
you know, because you can't justhave two or one or zero apparent or

(08:50):
zero or zero that's true, allyou just about it? Now do stickers,
man? You know, stickers sellsticker slap the pill do like the
stickers. But yeah, so nowI guess, I guess to name it.
I'm laser cutting the k twoso headpieces that I'm those I'm just going

(09:13):
to give away like candy because they'reso easy to make and manufacture and give
away almost no actually there is nopost processing. It's literally just done,
and I can laser them without thepaper on it, so I don't even
have to scrape that off so itdoesn't burn or melt. And then there's

(09:35):
the longest post processing are the datatapes that I'm making, and those I'm
going to probably barter away for likepatches and things that I want because those
are really nice. But then mythird idea was it's a little droid socket
coin and it's made out of multiplelayers of sixteenth inch acrylic with a little

(09:58):
M three bolt in the middle,and it looks really cool and it's it
can spin and it's kind of alittle fidgety. But my plan is to
make a bunch of these and putlike you know, sw see a Star
Wars celebrating at him twenty two onthe back and just give them out to

(10:18):
droid builders, you know, andand Star Wars ee people. Um.
But because you know, they again, cost material wise, they're next to
nothing. I can build it intoother projects, but I'd much rather trade
or give them away and not youknow, it's not worth selling at least
for the time being. So yeah, so now three three things, lots

(10:43):
of black acrylic sounds like it.Now I can see behind you, um
K two s os, legs,yes, or or for those who are
listening, or bones, femurs,just TVC pipe and connectors and nothing else,

(11:03):
although it was his chest plate behindhim, that's true. I mean,
I'm getting major flashbacks to when Iwas building him. I've actually had
these memories pop up in Facebook ofgetting him ready to take him to the
RPF meetup that was five years agoat this point, and at this point
he was a little bit farther alongthan this in the fact that he had

(11:26):
foam from the knees down and fromthe elbows down. So I kind of
felt like somebody stood in a vatafoam and bent over and stuck up to
their elbows in the foam water andthen stood out like that's what it looked
like. And I hurriedly made themost rudimentary of chest pieces because I'm like,

(11:48):
I cannot bring him to this eventwith nothing in the middle, like
he had his head, but soI literally threw that together with duct tape
and extra pieces like the day before. So that's, yeah, he's kind
of like that, I'm but I'mpretty happy with how he's coming along.
Again. I beefed up his hippieces, so I had three D printed

(12:11):
a bracket that goes from the pipeto the bearing and it worked, but
I was a little hesitant because itwas a little thin, and I'm like,
all it's going to take is onewrong motion and stress on the leg
and this is going to go.And so I basically just doubled all the

(12:33):
proportions, doubled the thickness, doubledthe length, made it in set,
so a lot more friction holding itin place, and I'm much happier with
that. So those are in andit's all going to be inside the leg
anyway, so it's not cosmetic.It doesn't need to look a certain way.
So now his lower half is alljointed out and so I just need

(12:54):
to start putting foam on it andwhich I'm going to try to really breakthrough
this weekend and then the only otherpieces I've been designing. I'm pretty much
done from the shoulders down to theelbows and I'm starting to work on the
hands. So again, I'm stillnot concerned concerned because the parts I've been

(13:16):
making are mostly three D printed,and that's really where time is an issue
because it just takes a lot oftime to make or iterate, especially if
it's prototyping. So I'm still kindof going by my main plan of really
just dialing in the skeleton because ifit is not, if you're having issues
with the skeleton after you put theouter skin on, now you have now

(13:41):
you're just going backwards because you're havingto cut pieces off and all of that.
So yeah, but I'm thinking it'sheading in the right direction. I
need to pick up the pace alittle bit on the head and the servos,
but I think if I spend Sundayfinishing the design infusion for the last
two pieces of the head, thenI can start printing those and those will

(14:05):
take like two days to print andthen I'm done with the head. So
but yeah, just again trying tostay ahead of that supply chain. I
did get close to wanting to buya Calcastus costume, but everywhere is selling
from China and everything is like comingin June, and I'm like well,
I guess that's my answer, becauseit's just not enough time to reliably order

(14:30):
something for an event that has aspecific date. Yeah, So I have
a question on any of the jointpieces, anything that's weight bearing. Are
you doing like one hundred percent infillor are you just doing like a fifty
percent infill? Like what's your approachon that, Because I know anything that's
going to have stress, my inclinationis always to go like one hundred percent

(14:54):
infill. No. Actually, sohalf of his joints are still the full
on PVC pipe joints, so they'revery start like they're extruded, you know,
PVC. They're not three D printedat all. So the knees,
the ankles, parts of the shoulder, So the only parts that are three

(15:16):
D printed are the the only Iguess weight bearing would be the hips.
And that's again why I beef themup. I still I think I only
took it up to like a fortyor a fifty percent infill. Again,
not that I'm worried about weight,it's just time. Like you you go
up to one hundred percent infill andyou're you're just chewing through filament and honestly,

(15:39):
even forty percent, Like that's alot, Like it's a pretty strong
piece even at forty percent. Iusually don't go below like eighteen or twenty.
I just like, I feel that'sa good infill in general as I'm
printing, and more so when Ihave to print something that is going to

(16:00):
have to start to fill in ontop of the infill, I find if
I do less than eighteen percent,I start to worry about its starting something
in air like I usually do,you know, like a certain pattern on
the inside, and so I getworried about that. So, yeah,
I usually don't go below eighteen percent, But for those yeah, I went

(16:21):
up, I think to like fortypercent. I don't think I've ever printed
anything at one hundred percent infill.It feels like that would just take forever.
But I do do about four layerson the base and the top layer,
and I think at least three orfour walls, so it's and again
it's all inside. So I sometimeswill wrap like a layer of really good

(16:42):
duct tape around it, like justto add a little extra snugness, because
if you can prevent it from cracking, then it's pretty solid. It's not
going to go anywhere. Yeah,and again there's only so much you can
do. I mean, if someonetakes a base all back to them like,
things are going to break like nomatter what you do. But again

(17:04):
I love this design of three Dprinting the sinew between parts. Because you
can not buy super specific, weirdsizes. You can buy a little more
generic sizes that are easier and morein stock because you can custom make the
piece. Actually, I think ifI showed you this one, So this

(17:30):
is the elbow joint and so thejoint comes down and this lets it rock
forward and back. So this hastwo bearings in it because there's going to
be a pipe that goes through thiskind of bottom of the elbow that makes
the wrist turn, and so Iwanted that to be on bearings, and
so this was custom printed and topress fit and place them inside. And

(17:56):
again it's it's a little chunky,but that it's totally fine because again it's
all going to be covered up andhidden. So yeah, and again I
am trying to have him done atleast a week before so I can kind
of give him a shakedown cruise.If something completely fails, I could always
print another one of these at ahigher infill or or even maybe do a

(18:21):
apoxy coating or something for strength,like there's options out there. Yeah,
it's funny for as much as peoplesay things about like ABS is great for
doing certain things because it's tolerance forheat is better, and PLA is always
going to get deformed and lose itsshape if it's just you know, kissed

(18:47):
by the sun kind of thing.Yeah, but a little bit of apoxy
goes a long way, because there'sa I have an ATAT helmet driver helmet
that it was one of the firstones I did, and I coded it
in epoxy and it's been sitting outsidefor the better part of like two years.

(19:10):
Oh it's still solid as a rock. So you know, if if
you don't want to deal with howfinicky ABS can be, to print PLA
with a bit of a POxy andit's not even it's not a POxy on
the outside, it's a POxy onthe inside. Oh so you coded the
inside. Oh that's true, becauseotherwise you're painting over and standing apoxy and

(19:33):
that sounds like a whole lot ofno fun. Yeah. Well, then
that was the dumb mistake that Imade the shore Trooper Grieves, which I
now have to resolve. But yeah, well in these pieces, I could,
I could epoxy the outside because they'reall going to be covered with other
material. But that was just likea two part epoxy where you mix it
in like painted on or yes,I'm pretty sure it was the xt see

(20:00):
three D oh right, right right. I was very into that because that
was the one thing that I justkept seeing people say over and over again.
Well, people smooth on kept saying, you want to get rid of
your three D print lines, andit's you know, it's not that they're
wrong, it's just that there's alot of different ways you could go about

(20:22):
doing it that yeah, maybe resultin the less standing. Yeah, no,
that's true, but but also theadded benefit of strength in the component
is definitely not lost. Yeah,for sure, for sure. Although it's
funny, So I thought my initialthought of why I decided to go with

(20:48):
the two part epoxy for these griebsfrom my Star Wars celebration costume was that
I thought, these things are gonnahave to flex so that I can get
my legs into them. Okay,so more of a practical at least flex
enough that I can get my heelthrough the bottom half of it because I

(21:10):
kind of reworked them a bit tofit the dimensions of my shins. But
I just thought, like, Iwould hate to go through all the trouble
to make these and you know,prep them and paint them and do all
that work and then like put themon once or twice and then have it

(21:33):
like snap or on the way somewherehave them warp because of the weather or
whatever. You know, it's likeit's California. It's always warm for the
most part. And so I thought, well, you know, this XTC
three D stuff worked really well forme. This helmet's been sitting out here
for two years and still looks exactlylike it does the last time I touched

(21:56):
it. So you know, there'sdefinitely something to using a two part epoxy
for three D printed parts. ButI think what ended up happening for me
was that the it's a one toone, I'm sorry, it's a two
to one ratio, and I thinkI may have been slightly off. And

(22:18):
so what ended up happening was thatin the because I guess the point of
this xCC three D is that it'ssort of self levels, oh right,
which is supposed to minimize your standingkind of true, but I think what
happened was that the epoxy kicked fasterthan it was supposed to, and a

(22:45):
lot of little like air bubbles andthings kind of got caught up in it,
because I just think the reaction happenedso quick that those things that would
the bubbles would normally pop on theirown before the epoxy would would set up.
And so now I'm having to goback and deal with all of that.

(23:06):
But also there's elements of it thatare still a little bit tacky,
and when I run my orbital sanderover the top of it, they kind
of it creates these little gummed upbits of almost like yeah, right,

(23:26):
So now I'm kind of like walkingthe fence of Do I get my scale
out instead of eyeballing it, whichI know, rookie mistake whatever, and
mix up a batch it doesn't haveto be much and go over the top
of what's already there and hope thatthat part curing will be enough to resolve

(23:51):
the issue. Or do I spenda bunch of time sanding through it.
I mean, it's only only theone leg at this point. I haven't
done the second one, which Idon't know that I would necessarily do the
same thing, knowing what's what I'vegone through with the first one. So
I don't know, it's it's allsort of damned if I do, damned

(24:18):
if I don't feeling. But Ialso don't want to have to reprint the
leg right again. I mean,I've got the time, but I just
I don't want it to Yeah,well, it is your main concern that
it's going to get damaged while you'reputting it on and off, like that
that moment of peak stress when you'rebending it in a certain way. I

(24:41):
mean, yeah, maybe it's justputting it through its paces and literally taking
off and putting it on and forlike a week, just continuously and put
it through. That's for us.And if it survives then great. And
if you hit your points where youcan tell where it's weaker, I mean,
depending on the design. Like Idon't know too much about that style

(25:03):
of greaves, but like you couldalways maybe just split it right down the
front and put a piece of youknow, elastic or fabric on the inside
and just make it so it hasno pressure on it at all, because
it's all and I don't know ifthere's a piece that can cover that kind
of a steam on the front.But because the thing stormtrooper greaves do flex,

(25:29):
but they're made out of two piecesand that's like vacuum formed abs plastic,
so it's fairly strong. Yeah.Yeah, this is a three D
print that's yeah, probably somewhere betweena sixteenth and a quarter of an inch
thick, and I could split itdown the center. You know, there

(25:53):
is a sort of shin guards thatattached to both legs right in then,
And I know a lot of peoplewho troop as a shore trooper have split
their grieves down the center and havedone kind of an elastic strapping so that
they can sort of expand and contractaround their legs, and then they use

(26:15):
a magnet to hold the shin guardsin place. But Okay, I don't
know that I'm there yet. Honestly, I took so much time making sure
that these things fit to the shapeof my legs that it almost feels like
a crime to modify them further thanyou know, like it would have been

(26:41):
one thing had I had this thoughtas I was printing them, because I
just would have printed them in twopieces and would have modeled in the holes
to accept the elastic bands or youknow, whatever it is that I ended
up going with. But you know, I don't know this. This is
my my new newness to the artof causeplay showing. That's true. And

(27:08):
you know you now you know,like the next time you make a pair
of greaves, you're going to approachit in a completely different way because of
this experience. Oh for sure,for sure. So what you're saying is
you're making a second costume. That'swhat I just heard. So I mean
in the future, in the future, in the future, yeah, I
mean in the not too distant future, missus van Oakes will will be attending

(27:33):
celebration with me, and so we'vebeen discussing her costume. Okay, so
that that'll that'll be the second costume. She's much more function over form in
this particular instance. It has tobe comfortable, has to fit well exactly,

(27:59):
but she also has some some veryspecific ideas in mind and stuff that
we're going to build for a costume, which should be fun because it's once
again sticking my toes in the waterof projects I've never done before, but
that I think I have a goodenough understanding to successfully complete well. A

(28:22):
friend of the show Brian Thompson andhis wife Carissa, I know, are
working on their Mando armor and ohmy gosh, like the sewing on that
under stuff looks beautiful and just theirdifferent methods for forming all the chest pieces,
and I can't wait to see it. It's I mean, that's the
other thing. It's like you buildsomething, especially on a con where you're

(28:47):
going multiple days, Like do youwear it every day? Do you wear
it every evening? Do you wearit one day? You know, like
I'd want to wear that something thatcool every day, but you know that's
not necessarily the most practical thing.No, no, but yeah, I
agree, And it is one ofthose things like, yeah, I know

(29:08):
a lot of work goes into makingpeople's like flight suits and things of that
nature, but they really have donesome nice tailoring. Oh yeah, it
looks almost it almost feels like acrime to not show it more. It's
like, can we can we findan empty booth and they can just put
it on a mannequin so we canall stare at it for the rest of

(29:29):
the week. You know, theydon't even have to wear it. But
yeah, no, maybe none,maybe maybe not, maybe not. I
don't know, honestly, I'm justlooking forward to being able to see people
in person in the costumes that they'vebeen documenting their process on for the past
you know, oh yeah, coupleyears in some cases. Well, especially

(29:52):
since I know a lot of peoplewere building costumes for celebration when it was
going to be in twenty twenty andthey got two more years of time.
Now some people are still working onthose costumes two years later. Just more
time doesn't necessarily equal done, butthose that have taken advantage of the extra
time, Yeah, it's gonna be. Yeah, there's going to be a

(30:15):
lot of really cool, cool peoplethere and yeah, I just I'm not
going to know what to do withmyself every day. It's going to be
so awesome. Yeah, Unfortunately we'reonly going for the one day. Okay,
but which which day? If youdon't mind, we will be there
Saturday. That's a good day togo. Sure, there's kind of stuff.

(30:37):
So yeah, no, it's Imean, if you're talking about like
big panels, but I don't know, if you guys see them like panel
people, you seem more like enjoyingthe experience and seeing friends kind of people.
Absolutely, we were talking about ittoday we were out running Samarans,

(30:59):
and we were talking about the Halloweenconvention that I go to every year and
how even in the ten years thatI've been attending, I've never once bought
anything on the show floor, mainlybecause I tend to I'm a maker.

(31:22):
Something that I think is interesting,I'll just make one for myself and then
it's mine. But I'm also thethe figuring out of Okay, well if
I buy this, then what amI going to do with it? While
I still have the rest of theshow to go check out and write.
What if we decide to leave togo get food or you know, all

(31:44):
the sort of stuff. It's likea day of Disneyman. You got to
play in the logistics, yeah,for sure. And and as far as
panels go, a lot of thatstuff ends up online after the act.
And I'm totally cool watching a replay. I don't necessarily find a lot of

(32:09):
bonus enjoyment out of being the firstto hear something or being in the room
with others experiencing that same moment,which is still cool. But is it
that cool enough to warrant the timeand the line waiting and all that exactly?
And when you're only spending one day, you really do have to sort

(32:30):
of maximize what you're you're checking out. So well, yeah, I mean,
like the you talk about buying thingsand I'm sure they'll be the celebration
store. And often what people won'trealize is getting into the store won't take
very long and they can grab theiritem, but then checking out can take

(32:52):
like two hours, and you're like, that's no fun. Yeah, unless
they've taken the time to figure outhow to do it, Like an Amazon
grocery store. I've never been insideone of those things. We just went
into one. It wasn't Amazon,it was Whole Foods, okay, but

(33:15):
it was a completely like check outless automated situation automated, and it was
amazing and weird all at the sametime. The facial recognition and all that
sort of stuff that's going on isfascinating and frightening. But I digress.

(33:42):
Yeah, if they could figure outhow to do that stuff at a convention,
be awesome, but you know,clearly there's no way that's happening.
Yeah, it's I think it's alwaysjust a trade off, Like you need
a bigger space if you're gonna havemore people checking out, but then you're
losing real estate for other things.So it's like at a certain point the
store isn't worth the size if it'stoo big. So again, things that

(34:05):
I don't have to plan or figureout is the appropriate scale size of the
convention store. But yeah, oneof my first celebrations, actually the first
one I went to, was thetwo thousand and seven celebration four, which
was I think the thirtieth anniversary ofStar Wars, and that was at the

(34:28):
La Convention Center and they had oneof the one I think it was like
the first night of the con wasthe super Marathon. And this was back
when they were only six movies andoh man, I was I think I
slept through most of Attack of theClones and it was fun. But yeah,
it just it was a different timeand celebrations changed a lot in the

(34:51):
last several years. I kind ofmiss not having to not being able to
go to Chicago in twenty nineteen.Barring being in Chicago, it sounds like
it was a really fun time andvery very hot inspired. But yeah,
no, it's going to be goodthough. I think it's even you know,
even if the con itself isn't asbig, or the panels selection or

(35:16):
the guests. Like, even ifall of that isn't whatever expectation I have
in my mind, which I don'tthink is even that high, just the
fact that I'm going to be ableto see a lot of these friends,
like you said, in real lifeand hang out with them, like,
that's going to be That's worth it. That's really why I'm going. Yeah,
for sure. I also think it'smuch like Comic Con because my wife

(35:45):
has never been. It is definitelyone of those things that you just have
to experience. Oh yeah, Idefinitely think it's worth it for you guys
to go a day. I thinkyou're going to get a lot out of
it that day. And yeah,it's it's a fun, fun time.
Yeah, because look, the truthof the matter is it never gets old

(36:08):
to see a bunch of Stormtroopers walkinganywhere. Yeah, no, you're right.
And this is an entire convention centerfull of people in full costume,
many of which are screen quality.And that's the other big difference I think
in celebration is the fact that itis a Star Wars convention, so it's

(36:30):
not like Comic Con, where itis comics in general and lots of variety,
which is great and has its place, but it's something. Yeah,
there's something about the fact that prettymuch ninety eight percent of all the costumes
you see are Star Wars or someinspired by Star Wars, and that's just

(36:50):
really cool. You're gonna see moreDarth Vaders than you ever thought existed.
And well, on Saturday is goingto be the Legion photo, which,
even if you're not in you shouldtry to take a look at it because
there's nothing like one hundred hundreds ofStar Wars costumes in formation taking a picture
together. It's it's beautiful. Chaosis a good way to fix explain it.

(37:17):
Yeah, we'll definitely have to tryand figure out when that's happening because
I've seen the photos in years past. So yeah, no, it'll be
a fun weekend for everybody, Ithink. So yeah. So I'll say
my con crunch O meter is ata solid five. You know, we're

(37:40):
we got five weeks left. Thingsare still coming together. The weekends almost
here a lot get out of fiveor five out of ten, sorry,
five out of ten, five outof ten. We're at halfway. We
still got room to freak out,but we're not there yet. Um yeah,
so I think I think we're doinggood again. Even on my not

(38:01):
and busy days, I've been ableto get something done every day, and
everything you get done is a thingthat you didn't have done before. So
it's only eventually you reach the pointwhere you have to get a certain amount
of things done in a certain dayor you're behind. But yeah, yeah,
so I think I think all thatwill come together. And we're still
getting awesome announcements and more guests andstill no one I've been interested in buying

(38:25):
a autograph or a photo with,but if that ends up not being the
case, then more money for otherstuff. So we'll just see how that
plays out. Yeah, I'm happyto report I'm only at like a two
and a half to a three.Okay, other stuff is anxiety producing,

(38:46):
but that's well, and I meancoming from inside that you're you're balancing that
amongst your weekly produce a project everyweek, you know, con crunch,
which is its own level of anxiety. I'm sure. Yeah, it's definitely
different, mainly because I'm always thinkingabout I'm I'm weekly. I am placing

(39:16):
a bet on what people will findinteresting, and sometimes in order to get
to that point, there's a lotof throwing things against the wall to see
what sticks. Yeah, and Ican see, you know, they're They're
not always great ideas, and sometimesthat's where the story is, and sometimes

(39:42):
there's a much larger story to betold, but it requires a bunch of
work on the back end, whichis where I'm at right now. So
it's, uh, you know,I'm using some skills that I don't use
very often, like woodworking and electronicsand you know, both of those things,
assuming that I can get the youknow, parts that I need on

(40:07):
time. And the sticker shock ofbuying lumber is still crazy making, so
you know, all of the platesspinning for that stuff, the prep for
celebration pales in comparison. That's that'strue. Oh that reminds me. I'm

(40:30):
like, why, like price oflumber, why does that make me think
of building? And then I rememberedthat that was the other big project that
I made this past week, wasthis project had been coming along for a
while and this was finally the timeto do it. So during my staycation,
my wife was out of town visitingher cousin for a few days,

(40:51):
and so we've been planning on convertingour walk in closet into a craft room
office room for her, so shecan have a space that she can kind
of retreat to and have her stuff, you know, closed the door off
from the kids and all that.So this she had already parred down her
side of the clothes, and Ihad pared down my side, and that

(41:16):
it's kind of a walk in withlike three sides, have that kind of
shelf on it with the code rackrunning around, and so I took everything
out and took a picture of itbefore and put it in like kind of
a sequential on the ground and paintedfrom the shelf up kind of a sky
blue and that'll help, you know, not feel So I'm in a box.

(41:43):
Repainted the walls what I thought wasa different color but turned out to
be the exact same color that theywere before, so more like giving them
a refresh, it still looked fine. I was going for a off white,
and I went with m what wasit like? I think it's called
like iced coffee or something like that, where it's apparely a very common indoor
paint for painting things. Because afterI painted, I'm like, I cannot

(42:06):
see the difference. I'm pretty surethat the exact color these walls were,
but you know, glad I spentmoney on that paint, and but yeah,
then Puck took all of the piecesback and put them back on the
shelves. And then we had prebought some storage cubes from Target because they
akia ones are expensive but pretty muchthe exact same thing, and those laid

(42:30):
out, and got a nice topperfor her desk and a shaggy green rug
on the floor, and yeah,and it worked great, and I think
it. I still have a littlebit of electrical and other things to do
there, but yeah, finding atime when most everybody else is out of
the house is sometimes the easiest timeto get things out. Because boy,

(42:51):
if you had turned the camera aroundone hundred eight degrees to look at the
rest of the room, it lookedlike a bomb had gone off. There
was piles of clothes is everywhere,and there's have disassemble table and everything is
everywhere, and I'm just like,Okay, this will get done, but
it's order of operations time at thispoint. And we also hung two new

(43:14):
coat racks. There's kind of analcove outside of our closet that is where
her desk used to be, andI added two coat bars, one at
the ceiling basically, and then onethree feet below that for our part down
clothing, and that actually ended upworking out pretty well. So that's our

(43:36):
indoor outdoor closet, but it works. That was good. That was good
to finally finally pull it all togetherand get it off my list. Yeah,
it's having that uninterrupted time. Yes, well, and also it was
the day before she was coming back, and so I wanted to get it
done so the paint smell wasn't thereanymore and give it time to kind of

(44:01):
ever vess off. Sure and unYeah, so that was that was good.
Nice doing some some stuff for themisses. Yeah, always good.
And improving to use creativity always good. That's right. All right. Well,

(44:22):
we'll keep everybody updated with our concrunch anxiety meters, what projects we're
working on, and maybe we'll findtime for a guest or two as the
weeks countdown to celebration, and thenwe can talk about what it's Halloween,
that's the next holiday coming down.I don't know, I've already got people
sending me messages like, hey,when are the Halloween videos going to start?

(44:45):
It is? It's April April atthe time of this recording. Well,
and you know we can. Wecan probably also find find carve out
an hour on Saturday and we canchord live together in person at the con
find a semi quiet corner and Ithink that would be fun. Sounds like

(45:08):
a plan, all right. Well, if people want to see your awesome
projects gonks, armor or tombstones,I'm sure a tombstone's going to crop up.
It's been a while where they takeweeks away. I am over on
YouTube at van Oaks Props and thesame can be said for Instagram and Twitter

(45:36):
and uh and what about you,Darren? Where can people find what's on
your workbench? They can find sixinches of clearance, the only usable space
on a true proper workbench by goingto doctor sci Fi dot com Dr sci
Fi, where all my socials areas well as my troop block love it

(45:58):
well. As always, you canfind all whole variety of nerdy content here
on the Nerdparty network, everything fromPalpatine to Potter and all sorts of fun
stuff in between. So be sureto check out the full lineup of shows
over at the Nerdparty dot com Anduntil next time, keep making