project Archives - Laura Cerrone

I am going to New York Comic Con! I haven’t been since 2011 so I am SUPER EXCITED!

My favorite superhero movie is Captain America: The Winter Soldier, partly because I love Ed Brubaker’s comic that started it and also Sebastian Stan’s portrayal of the Winter Soldier.

So, I have been working on my costume, known in the nerd world as cosplay, of the Winter Soldier. I have a few steps left with making the arm, which is essentially the most difficult part of the costume. The rest of the costume is pretty much black clothes with some gadgets and gizmos. I’m also dressing as a female version of The Winter Soldier.

Here are some progression shots and my explanation of what’s going on:

1st Part: After wrapped my left arm in Saran wrap and then masking tape, we cut it off my arm. Here I am stuffing the makeshift cast of the arm with plastic bags so it will retain its shape during the process.

2nd Part: This is it closed back up. My biggest regret is not smoothing down the masking tape edges, it became such a headache later on.

Step 4: Here’s another picture of the application of the wood glue. This time I mixed the wood glue with water putty to have some flexibility in the material. After many coats and letting it drive I sanded it for days.

Step 5: This is the arm covered in worbla, a thermoplastic material. It’s hard when room temperature but once heated it becomes quite malleable. You can also see that I split the arm in two so I have bend my arm.

Not pictures, but will be in my part two of this post is cutting the back open again and affixing elastic to it so it doesn’t slide on my arm and stays fitted. I’m looking to spray paint it next and added details.

The East Side Access Tunnel trip was incredibly fascinating and I learned so much. To reiterate, the East Side Access is a project connecting the LIRR to Grand Central Station. The LIRR only goes to Penn Station, which leaves many commuters with a long journey to work. Creating this project by adding three new tracks that will use the 63rd street tunnel, which was built in the late 60s and 70s and nicknamed the ‘tunnel to nowhere,’ even though it will be serving this project. The F train uses the two upper tracks of the tunnel, while the lower two tracks have been unused. They will be used by the East Side Access trains once this project is completed.

We first toured the Queens side, which is less complete. The Queens side is more complicated then the Manhattan side because they water table is only 10 feet below ground, which Manhattan is solid rock. They are working on finishing excavating the tunnels and then connecting them in the break section. We didn’t get a chance to see an actual tunnel boring machine (TBM) since our tour was running late. The TBM’s are apparently ginormous and its job is to excavate a circular cross-section. The excavation is then lined with gigantic concrete slabs, which serve as the basis of the tunnel. There’s about 2,400 workers and the project has been in progress for 10 years. Completion is not expected until 2019, mostly due to financial and budgeting problems. There has only been 1 death in

Queens Tunnels — The top three tunnels are ‘revenue,’ which means passenger trains will be using those, and the fourth one, hard to see, but it’s on the bottom moves trains to their needed locations.’

When we went to the Manhattan side, my best comparison is to an alien planet. It’s super dark and dusty, and completely muddy. The temporary lights only illuminate sections being worked on, and in every direction you can see the eerie glow of them, and some huge machine tearing through dirt, or drilling, or something else that needs to be done.

Manhattan side of the project. — Here’s a tunnel being worked on, I believed this one leads down to a would-be subway platform.

Here’s a tunnel being worked on, I believed this one leads down to a would-be subway platform.

I wish I brought my better D-SLR camera to snag better quality shots but I was afraid of it getting damaged or dirty, I did not know what to expect. When we were in the Manhattan tunnels, we were not allowed to use flash for two reasons: 1. The air was so dusty. 2. A camera flash might confuse the workers of a blast, which can be very dangerous to them.

One of my favorite parts was returning to the surface after the Manhattan trip. I had forgotten after we had taken the subway from Queens to Grand Central that we entered the site from a specialized personnel door in the terminal. To think that this other planet of construction was just a few hundred feet from the elegant Grand Central station was just… unbelievable. It definitely contributed to the feeling of being on another planet.

The workers are also all over the world and are highly specialized and many of the machines used are also from all parts of the world, mainly Germany. It was also good for me to see four female workers, all engineers, and despite the dirty workplace, they looked great.

The East Side Access Tunnel project was definitely a once in a lifetime experience for me. It is currently the biggest kind of it’s project in North America, and to witness the creation of something that will serve thousands of tri-state area residents and travelers is an awesome feeling.

Tag: project

Comic Con Coming Up!

East Side Access!