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newbie

Inflatable costume

Posted by Mark on: May 20th 2009 5:47:15 am

I have to fabricate an inflatable belly costume for one of our actors to use in an upcomming play. The play centers around a man who over time develops a rather large protruding beer belly and at some point in the play there is confusion as to if he is pregnant. I was planning on using .6mm latex for the part of the costume that wraps around the actors waist and chest area and glue a 10 1/2 inch round piece over where I want his belly to expand. I was going to use .3 or.4 mm thick latex for the round piece because I thought that it would expand better. I need there to be no leaks after the belly is expanded even when it gets to the size of the actor looking pregnant. Anyone have any ideas aout what thickness to use? Also wondering about the best way to inflate, I was planning on using 1/4 inch tygon tubing attached to a blood pressure hand bulb pump. The other end of the 1/4 inch tygon tube end needs to somehow be attached (glued?) into the expandable part of the belly.  Thank You!

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Response by: WinnieLatexTV, June 29th 2009 4:40:37 pm

Hello:  I make inflatable breast forms.  I find the 0.50 latex works well.  I do something similar to what you want to do, that is I have a bra body to which I glue the breast form.  Your belly idea sounds OK to me but I do not think you will get the expansion you want by having the belly part simply glued over the body.  I think you will need to have some looseness in the belly part to inflate it otherwise I do not think you will get the effect you desire and the latex will not blow up as big as you want it.  You may also find that in inflating it there will be pressure pushing back onto the persons real belly area, this may make them sick or it difficult to breath, especially if they have clothing that does not stretch too much.  I have experienced this while wearing my inflatable bra.

As for the tubing.  I use latex tubing which I have found at an on line scuba dive shop, although such a shop locally may have the tubing  latex surgical tubing also works.  I have enough length of tubing to blow the breast froms up with my mouth, it does not take high pressure.  I then have found smooth surfaced electrical "wire nuts" work well as a plug and they come in various sizes so you can select a size to match the ID of your tubing, they are inexpensive.

On the breast form, or in your case belly form I cut a small latex doughnut and glue it to the inside of the breast form/belly form to reinforce around the hole.  The hole in the breast/belly form I make by cutting an X in the latex sheet, just a bit smaller than the tubing.  As the latex tubing is pushed through the hole the flaps on the X will serve to hold the tube in place.  How to glue in a bit.  I also cut a piece of latex to wrap around the tube where it will go through the form, I then glue and wrap this around the tube.  I also have another similarly piece of latex which after I insert the tube into the form I wrap this again around the tube leaving a small flange at the bottom to flare out to be glued to the body of your form, this privides the necessary seal and reinforcing.  After I have the first piece of latex glued around the tube I then put adhesive around the outside of this and slide it through the hole in the form and push the pieces from the X cut hole around it; this would be before glueing the belly part onto the form.  Once the tube is in the form I then put glue on the outside of the tube where I have wrapped and glued the first piece of latex to the tube and I glue the second piece of latex over this first, and press the flange to the body of the form to assure an air tight seal.

Note:  I am using solvent based adhesive.

I hope this helps.

Winnie