21st Century Kinkycrafts

Foole

FUNDAMENTALS:

BASIC ROPE KIT

Rope is a wonderful bondage tool. No other SM toy offers such versatility and, as one professional mistress puts it, one size fits all.

Materials:     100' cotton rope

lingerie bag

Tools:            needle and thread

laundry marker

scissors

Time:            two hours plus machine washing and drying time

Cost:             under $20

Good general purpose bondage rope is soft and flexible, with a slight outer roughness to help hold knots. A 3/16 thickness seems to work best. 100% cotton rope, without plastic or wire cores, is recommended. Such rope is widely available, readily cleaned and inexpensive – look for 100% cotton clothesline in hardware stores, or magician’s rope in magic stores. Cotton rope is not recommended for suspension bondage, but for ordinary people tying" it works great.

You can make a good starter set of bondage ropes from a 100' rope. Wash it with fabric softener. (Placing it in a lingerie bag will prevent jamming the washing machine.) Once you’ve washed and dried your new rope, begin cutting it. Ropes about 6' long, or multiples of 6', work well for general use. Therefore, take the 100' length of rope, find its midpoint, and cut it in two. Take each of the halves and cut it in half, then cut each of those in half again. You now have four shorter lengths of rope, each about 12' long. In my experience, the is the most useful length for general purposes, particularly regarding tying hands.

Now take the other 50' length and cut it in half; repeat until you have eight lengths of rope each about 6' long. Use thread to sew each rope’s ends to prevent unsightly unraveling. (This is called whip-stitching.)

A good way to tell the different lengths apart is to use a different color of thread for each different length. For example, you might use blue thread on 6' lengths and red thread on 12' lengths. Because much bondage starts at a rope’s midpoint, it’s also handy to use a bit of thread to mark that. Another approach is to use a laundry marker to make one circle around each end of a 6' rope and two circles around each end of a 12' rope. (Mark the midpoint, too.)

One easy way to store individual lengths is to fold it in half two or three times and finish by knotting the folds in a simple overhand knot. The lingerie bag also makes a good container for holding your rope. Happy tying!

contributed by Jay Wiseman, author of SM 101: A Realistic

Introduction and Jay Wiseman's Erotic Bondage Handbook.

Jay can be contacted c/o Greenery Press, or at jaywiseman@yahoo.com.

FUNDAMENTALS:

MOUNTING EQUIPMENT

ON WALLS

No matter how well-built a piece of bondage equipment may be, it is worse than useless if a firm yank or a sturdily built bottom can send it crashing down in a shower of wallboard or plaster.

Fortunately, mounting an eye-bolt or piece of equipment is not difficult if you’re willing to take the time (and make some basic equipment purchases) to do it properly.

Most walls and ceilings fall into one of three categories: wallboard (a relatively soft sheet that is nailed in place over underlying studs), plaster, or masonry (brick or concrete). If you’re mounting something onto wallboard or plaster, it becomes essential that you attach it firmly into the center of the underlying studs. Neither wallboard nor plaster, nor the lath or gypsumboard that serves as a foundation for plaster, is strong enough to support bondage.

Figure 1 portrays the underlying structure of a wallboard wall. The individual vertical boards, which are called two-by-fours but are actually about 15/8 wide, are called studs. (If they’re in a ceiling, they’re called joists – don’t ask why.) They are almost always 16 apart, measured from the center of one stud to the center of the next.

A crucial piece of equipment is called a stud finder. It pays to buy a good one – the Zircon Studsensor, at $25 or so, is recommended. This electronic gadget, when run along a wall, signals with a series of flashing lights the beginning and end of a stud’s location. When you first get your stud finder, it’s a good idea to practice with it on a wall where you know the location of the studs (often garage walls are unfinished so you can see exactly where the wallboard is nailed to the studs).

If you think you’ve found a stud, take the following steps. First, check 16" away, and see if there’s another stud there. If there is, you’ve probably found one. Next, make a test hole – either by driving in a small nail, or by making a hole with the smallest bit on your power drill.

If you feel the nail or drill bit go into something solid, you’ve found a stud. Check with other test holes at 1/2 to 1 intervals until you know exactly where the stud begins and ends. Anything you use to mount bondage equipment should be firmly anchored in the center of the stud.

If the wall is plaster, the technique is basically the same but a bit more complicated. Plaster walls are backed by studs in the same way as wallboard walls, but atop the studs is a layer of either lath (figure 2) or gypsum board (figure 3). A nail or drill bit that hits lath or gypsum board will react with a unique bouncing sensation it won’t sink satisfyingly into wood. Keep trying until you get a nice deep solid test hole, then test to either side until you’ve located the stud.

Masonry and concrete walls have no studs; you anchor the bolts or whatever directly into the material of the wall. This requires some special hardware. Tapcon screws are specially hardened for use in con crete. They come with their own special drill bit. Drilling into concrete takes patience but not all that much finesse. Pre-drill the hole with the special drill bit, then screw in the tapcon screw. Voila!

Some modern high-rise apartments use metal studs. If you live in such an apartment, you’re kind of out of luck – consider investing in freestanding equipment.

What do you mount when you mount into a wall or ceiling? Eye-bolts, the classic solution, aren’t really the best solution. A hitching ring (figure 4) gets anchored in four places instead of one, and is much stronger than an eye-bolt (and much less likely to get unscrewed by a twisty submissive). They’re a bit more expensive than eye-bolts, but a worthwhile investment. These are strong enough even for suspension, if all four screws have been sunk solidly into studs or masonry.

Some other optimal solution for serious bondage mounting can be found under Unistrut Attachments in this book. Use the tips in this section to make sure your materials are mounted sturdily.

contributed by John H.

FUNDAMENTALS:

PADDING AND UPHOLSTERING

Many bondage toys can be much more comfortable if they are padded. Once you master some basic principles, padding your equipment adds very little to the time and expense involved in building it.

You’ll need a carpet knife, a good pair of shears and a staple gun loaded with 1/4" staples. Although we all wish we could upholster our toys in leather, that’s beyond most of our budgets. Imitation leathers made of vinyl look almost as nice (although, of course, they don’t have the lovely smell and breathability of leather). Vinyl upholstery material is readily available in yardage stores.

The most practical and affordable padding material for bondage toys is generally carpet padding, which is very cheap at carpet stores. Two layers of thick carpet padding will offer sufficient comfort for most equipment.

The easiest upholstery project for beginners is a flat board, such as a bondage board. To pad it, cut two layers of carpet padding 1 bigger in each dimension than the board. Cut the vinyl 12 bigger in each dimension.

Place the vinyl face down on the floor. Center both carpet pads on top of it. Place the board on top of the whole thing. If you want to be super-secure, glue the pads together and to the board. There should be about 6 of vinyl and 1/2 of padding on all sides of the board.

Pull one of the long sides up over the board . Staple all the way down the side at intervals of about 2, placing the staples about 2 from the edge of the board and parallel to it. Next, do the opposite side. Repeat stapling process, being sure to get plenty of tension on the vinyl before you set the staples. Use shears or knife to cut off excess vinyl along staples.

Fold in one of the long ends at an angle on both sides, as though you were wrapping a Christmas package. Pull the folded end up over the end of the board and staple as before. You can use a bit more tension here than you did on the first long side, since your previous stapling is holding the vinyl in place. Repeat at the far end, putting more tension on the vinyl.

These basic principles apply to upholstering all bondage equipment, from the simplest to the most complex. If you are upholstering something more complex than a simple box shape, you may wish to cut and adjust a muslin fitting pattern before you cut your vinyl.

Any eye-bolts or similar attachment points should have a large washer or protector to prevent tearing the vinyl.

contributed by John H.

FUNDAMENTALS:

THE JOY OF

LEATHERCRAFTING

Many, many KinkyCrafts are made of leather (duh!). Some basic knowledge of leather selection and crafting skills will help you create durable, safe, beautiful leather toys.

Leather is most often made from cow skins, but sometimes from the skins of smaller animals such as goats and pigs. Cow leather is usually sold by the side, which is half the cowskin divided lengthwise from head to tail – however, some garment and upholstery cowhide, and the hides of smaller animals, are sold as full skins.

The leather along the animal’s spine is typically the best piece – belly leather is too soft, neck leather is full of creases, rump leather has been flattened from a curve to a flat piece and thus behaves oddly during crafting. For an extra cost, you can buy double backs, which are back skin only, or bends, which are back and rump skin. A bargain for experimenting with leather is tooling-leather belly skin.

Leather is measured with a special machine and sold by the square foot. It is also sold by weight, which is more accurately a measure of thickness: one ounce equals about 1/64". Typically, the weight of the leather is expressed as a range of ounces.

Leather is categorized by the method by which it was tanned. Rawhide, which is mostly used for utility purposes such as lacing, is a milky pale yellow