u/gemurrayx

Briefly, I’m trying to find a character to use at a Star Wars themed event where I’m volunteering as front of house/greeting the public and will be required to be in costume. It would be better to pick someone who would be filling that purpose in universe, like a doorman or guard.

I could be on my feet all day, and we have to travel to get there so it should be possible to easily pack it for a trip, so probably not a droid or anyone with a lot of armor. Bonus points if it lends itself to talking with people or any other tasks I might have to take care of. I don’t have to pass standards or get approved by any of the groups like the 501st or the Legion, but it should be recognizable who it is.

I have experience sewing and building props and accessories, but have never made anything from Star Wars. I keep watching the extras in the movies and shows but haven’t yet found a good match. If it helps I stand about 6’3” with broad shoulders and weigh about 230 pounds.

I've been trying to figure out a particular puzzle for a little while now: I occasionally will thermo or vacuum form plastic sheets when 3D printing isn't going to produce the best result. I'm limited in size by the dimensions of the plastic sheet I can consistently heat to the correct forming temperature, and so if the sheet won't fit in the toaster oven I use for crafting or the heat gun isn't sufficient, I can't do it.

For awhile I've been looking for the simplest method of upscaling a heat source that I could use to heat plastic to its forming temperature. I think the largest I would ever need to get would be about 30 inches by 30 inches, and a good target temperature for something like HDPE sheeting would be between 300 and 350 degrees. I know someone who used to demonstrate solar cooker ovens to middle school students, and when I heard them talk about it I thought it was perfect. Unfortunately, even with someone to assist me I've been unable to get any solar oven hot enough to use.

My current solar oven is made from two layers of heavy corrugated cardboard, a box sitting inside it's fitted lid, with heavy duty aluminum foil lining every square inch of the inside of the box. The foil is as smooth as I can make it, but I will admit there are a few wrinkles in the foil by this point. There's a 3/32" thick new piece of clear glass that is not UV treated to cover it. The box itself measures 30 inches wide, 30 inches long, and 6 inches high. I have repeatedly tested it and just cannot get the oven hot enough to use-today the high temperature here was 104F with minimal clouds and high UV index, and I never saw the oven thermometer inside the box even reach 200 degrees after 2 hours in the direct sunlight.

I've tried different sheets of glass, triple sealing different boxes and have used a couple of infrared thermometers to check the sides of the box to see if heat is getting out somewhere, but it doesn't seem to be. Any thoughts here? This seems like it should be working better, but I'm just about out of ideas. Is the oven just too large to get hot enough for what I need?

I sometimes have this memory of watching a movie back in the 80's or 90's that was set sometime during the settling of the American West. The two main characters I remember are a young boy, maybe 10 years old, and his butler(?) and they somehow find themselves in a small frontier town without any money. Thinking quickly, the butler finds a chair, has the boy sit down on a street corner in broad daylight, and produces a pair of scissors and a comb and begins to cut his hair. The passersby begin noticing and before long a line forms. The butler spends all day cutting hair for the local men and when the day is finally over, the men of the town all look much better groomed and our main characters have more than enough money for their needs.

Sound familiar? I can't seem to find it in Google.

I’ve tried to find a good source before and still haven’t. Anyone know where the line starts?

https://www.threads.com/@vancityreynolds/post/DbPXBR2lPLJ?hwta=1

I tried the r/cosplayhelp sub yesterday, hope to have better luck here. I’m exploring a couple of costuming ideas and would love to have the suit as a base to build on, just not in blue, so I'd need to make it from scratch. I’m fairly good at sewing from a pattern, and I see other cosplayers making the suit with special fabric, but I don’t see a pattern if I want to make it from other fabrics. Has anyone released one?

So last week I shared my story of learning how easy Subaru lug nuts are to ruin:

https://www.reddit.com/r/subaru/comments/1uhysuz/second_head_unit_replacement_this_week_and_just/

Yesterday I kept my appointment to have my car's touchscreen replaced and have them check all the lugs to see how many might have been double-threaded or otherwise ruined by a tire tech who wasn't careful enough. Checked twenty lugs, replaced one stud and lug, the same one that the tire shop was having trouble with. Had my car back before noon, and I got my car in at the tire shop for a rotation a couple of hours later.

Guess what? The tire shop couldn't get one of the lugs off again. Not the same one, but one of the lugs that Subaru had signed off on two hours before as OK. I had the shop go ahead, they broke it, and then drove right back to Subaru on nineteen studs to get them to replace that one too.

I haven't paid a dime. The tire shop is responsible for double-threading the first one when they did the last rotate and balance, and they're reimbursing me. Subaru replaced the second one at their expense since they checked it and told me it was ready. I'm just a little concerned that at some point someone will work on the tires and break a couple of lugs and I won't be able to get them fixed so quickly.

Nothing is peened yet, but I have my new brass rods holding everything in place, and I'm testing the movement on all the tools. When I open and close the last layer, the outside liner keeps warping outwards in the middle and staying in that position. I can push it back into place, but it happens every time. Opening tools in the inner layers don't seem to cause it to happen. The liner pops out far enough to potentially keep the scales from staying on (about 1/16th of an inch).

Is this a common problem? Did I ruin something when I disassembled the Explorer?

My best friend and I were on a trip to New York to do some shopping and take in a show, but then while we were there the Void thing happened. I have to say, no matter what you've heard it was so much worse. I spent what seemed like forever reliving a particularly bad time in college when I was close to flunking out, dating someone who was bad for me, and constantly fighting with my parents about it all-it was like a dream that I couldn't wake up from, but it was worse because it had all really happened to me.

And then suddenly, we were back out, right where we were outside Rockefeller Center when it started. Everyone else around us looked horrible, including my friend. We stumbled back to our hotel, and over the next few days and weeks some people started sharing online about what had happened to them inside the darkness.

The thing is, when my friend finally started talking to me about her experience, I didn't think it was very dark or disturbing-while everyone else went through genuinely bad things like assaults, abuse, car accidents, or reliving life-changing personal failures, apparently the worst thing she's ever had happen to her was before I knew her when she was on a little kids' soccer team and she soiled herself during a game. I don't know if I can take her seriously as a person anymore.

Everyone else who's talked about their void time, me included, relived horrible things, and the worst that she's been through was taking a poo on the soccer field. Am I terrible for thinking that because she's never been through anything actually tough that I can't relate to her?