Klarinet Archive - Posting 000896.txt from 2000/08

From: Bill Hausmann <bhausmann1@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] red plastic mouthpiece?
Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2000 22:10:56 -0400

At 06:38 PM 8/27/2000 -0700, William Wright wrote:
> One of my customers had a contract to build theme park rides for
>Hershey's in Pennsylvania. The mechanics and electronics of those rides
>were fascinating, but one of my customer's ideas was to cast a woman's
>body out of resin. (I sold him the resin.)
> From the rear, the woman was to appear shapely with an ...ummm,
>well-defined derriere. When she began to spin to a frontal stance, the
>audience would -- of course -- expect to be treated to an eyeful (or to
>as much of an eyeful as a family-oriented establishment would allow).
> But what the audience would actually see from the front was a
>phosphorescent skeleton inside glowing body with no flesh at all. It
>would've been a terrific sight gag.
>
> So how was this effect to be achieved? The body was to be made of
>clear plastic resin. The back surface of the woman would have two
>layers of pigment -- 'skin tone' with appropriate shadings when seen
>from the rear, and dead black when seen from the front (through the
>transparent torso). Therefore the body would disappear in the blackness
>of the ride when she spun around to face the audience.
> But buried in this life-size clear casting would be a
>phosphorescent skeleton lit by black light (UV light). Some of the
>phosphorence would be reflected by interior surfaces of the transparent
>casting and would give the body a ghostly glow that would coruscate as
>the body spun and the reflection angles changed.
> It should've been a great sight gag, but......
>
> Most plastics do absorb light (which is why many of them degrade in
>sunlight), and this causes unpredictable color effects. It's more of a
>case of absorption than of refraction.
> In the woman's case, the resin absorbed almost 100% of the UV and
>therefore the skeleton didn't glow. Nobody (myself included) had
>considered this possibility. Afterwards, I mentally kicked myself and
>said, "Dummy! Why do you think plastics are degraded by UV in the first
>place? If the light passed straight through them, there'd be no damage
>to the resin."

The breadth of experience of the people on this list never ceases to amaze
me. That's what makes it such fun to be here! You can learn a lot from
the occasional off-topic digression.

Bill Hausmann NEW ADDRESS: bhausmann1@-----.com
451 Old Orchard Drive http://homepages.go.com/~zoot14/zoot14.html
Essexville, MI 48732 ICQ UIN 4862265

If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is too loud.

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