Dear all
So I thought that this project might be doable so I had a go at making a test boot to try and get a feel for what was involved in scaling up.
The first thing that took me by surprise is just how big every piece is. It shouldn't really as the clue is in the phrase "life-size"
The above is the "internal support structure" a boot (which is as it is in the 1/4 model. However straight away it is clear this will have to be increase in the L-S model. So added some extras to see how it goes (shown below)
However this is not enough so add some more support (again below)
This seems to be okay but I get the feeling internal support is going to be tricky due to the irregular shape of the model.
Sill I moved onto the outside of the boot. It is clear that on the 1/4 model it is intended that some of the joins will be edge glues and some using joining strips and some you can use tabs. However it is not always clear to me which were intended at each point. Moreover scaling up to this size means edge glues (which I find extremely hard to do neatly) will not necessarily work. So with the outside of the boot I experiment with a number of different things
For the heal, edge and lowest part of toe cap I used tabs to go underneath the sole
However overlapping is not going to work as this shows
The instructions for the 1/4 model say all these parts to be backed by .5 mm this card "ceral boxes are ideal". So I experiment with cereal boxes and also some 1mm card. I also have another go at trying to avoid joining tabs as I can imagine places where this is going to be very difficult
As you can see the results are a bit meh. So for the next parts of the toe cap I try joining tabs
This is much better though not as easy as I thought it would be. I am still unsure about the thickness of the backing. So next uo is the lower part of the "soft outer"
This as you can see just does not fit. The scaling up and my joinings have just thrown everything out. After some thought and looking at stuff I have decided that the only way to proceed is to make the 1/4 model at the same time in order to "see" exactly how everything works. This will let me see how scaling up can be done.
So next up will be trying a 1/4 boot
Regards
Kevin