The interior structure of the whale is going to be built out of 1/2 inch pex pipe. I'll construct it by making a series of "ribs"- circles of pex the will run the length of the whale's body at 3 foot intervals, which will be connected by a couple of "spines"- probably one along the top of the whale, and one along the belly. Possibly more if I need them for stabilization.
I figured out the sizes for these ribs much the same way I did for the original girth circumference - measuring the girth at different points along the whale from a picture and doing some math to translate that to real whale size. So, with a rib occurring every three feet in my skeleton, I'll end up with nine ribs (the final rib at the end of the body is less than three feet away from the previous one). Here are the circumference measurements for each rib:
So first I cut the pex pieces to the right length using this handy pipe cutter that I borrowed from a friend. Using the pipe cutter is easier than I thought it would be - it cuts through the pex with no trouble at all.
Then, I've got these little metal connect-y bits that fit inside the pex, and I use those to connect the two ends together, making a circle.
It turned out that the connections were a little loose, so I ended up just putting a piece of tape around the join of each rib to ensure it doesn't come apart.
I've labeled each rib with both the size and the corresponding letter from my diagram (above).
And, as it turns out, whales are BIG. I guess I didn't really have a realistic idea in my head about how big 14 feet around is, but it's no small thing.
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| Kerri with the 13 foot rib |
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| Tracy holding the biggest ribs |
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