Power Loader

Ah yes, the Power Loader. My crowning achievment. Both technically and cosmetically. This was a thing of beauty and a labor of love. Took me the better part of 5 months working in a little room in our little town-house until I had to take it to my father's shop to set it up and paint it.

I spent a lot of time thinking about how to make this thing work as a wearable costume. It came to me one day while I was walking through the local hardware store and I saw that pink and blue stiff styro insulation board. The stuff is extremely light weight and actually very strong, especially if you laminate the sheets together. So that is what I did. I went to a local hobby shop and convinced the guy there to let me photocopy the instructions from a Halcyon  Power Loader model kit. I then blew up the scale drawings and cut my pieces from the foam accordingly. I modified the loader a little to make it more practical to wear. I shortend the lower leg segment by about 8 inches otherwise I would have been less stable that far off the ground. As well I shortened the forearms by about 8 inches . All that mass out in front was a bit too much. The legs and upper part were completey seperate. The legs were built with a wooden base for the shoes and a 1/4 in plywood skeleton over which the foam was set to make the legs strong at the hinge points. My feet went into snow board boot clips on the top of the shoes a belt around my waist to keep the legs on and  a strap across each of my knees so the legs would bend with mine. It worked quite well. The upperpart wore like a big back pack. A hip harness and two well padded shoulder straps made for a comfy set up. The assembly  weighed about 40lbs which is not very much when you look at what all was hanging off of there. The clamps did rotate but I ran out of time to make them open and close. All the foam bits were covered with yellow fabric . This did two things; one was to help protect the foam from wear and tear as well as giveit the yellow color with out having to worry abou the paint chipping off.. Some highlighting and low lighting and some rust colors in the right spots and from a distance of about 10 feet you were hard pressed to tell if it was the real deal or not. Sadly the Power Loader is no longer with us. It had to be put to rest when we moved.

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