Project: portal long fall boots part 2

In part 1 of the portal long fall boots tutorial I left off at the heel springs/supports. 

Since then I've acquired a six foot length of 1/8" thick, two inch wide spring steel. I checked my steel design books and that should more than adequately hold my weight- who knew I'd be using all those fancy engineering courses for cosplay?! The thickness and width of flatbar you use for this will vary based on your weight- you don't have to do the math on this if you don't want to, most metal manufacturers will have load ratings for thier product. 

I chopped it to length, I won't give a length here because that will vary based on how tall the person wearing the boots is, I figured this length out by using a strip of flexible plastic (aka my long French curve from drafting class. At this point I think my professors would do some hardcore cringing at my use and application of university learned stuffs.) 

Such beauty, much happy;

The next step, and this is an important one, is to gind and bevel the ends of the flatbar. This is important should the bolts holding your flatbar on your boot ever let go, there's nothing sharp and hopefully the only thing hurt is your pride. This is the point where I say I take zero responsibility for any long fall boot builds that may use this method, you build em, you take responsibility for em! 

For the next step I did some more maths and figured out the sheer resistance I'd need and the number of bolts to hold these bad boys on and keep them there despite all my ample-ness coming down on them with every step.  Those calculations showed me that I could get away with 4-5 3.5mm hardened steel bolts. (Again, if you aren't up for the math contact the manufacturer for thier specs- I just prefer my calculator to talking on the phone.)

I also bought lock nuts to go with said bolts to help keep everything together. I will glue the lock nuts in place on the bolt when I get to that stage, but a little exta reassurance never hurt. 

Read: I really don't want to fall in my arse because my shoe build boarded the fail boat!   

This is the bolt pattern I eventually ended up going with. In the event I decide I need the fifth bolt, I can add it to the middle, I just really didn't want to do more drilling. As luck would have it it is rather difficult to drill through this stuff, and I killed my drill in doing so. *moment of silence for the drill* 

The next step for the heel supports is to bend them. I'm sure that there is an easier way to do this than I did. I clamped the flat bars to my work bench, heated them with a torch till they were a little more mailable, but not red hot. And I hammered and heaved on them till I got the curve I liked. Like I said, there are easier ways, but one uses the tools available, no matter how much the insessant hammering drives the neighbours mad. 

Once I had a curve I liked on the first heel support and it fit up as intended, I traced it on my workbench so I could compare for the second curve. Then repeat the banging and heating much to the chagrin of the neighbours. 

Now we've got ourselves a pair of fancy heel spring supports for our long fall boots! This is where I end part two of this party. In part three I will cover my process for making the upper portion of the boot and affixing it all together, so stay tuned! 

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