These gloves were a lot of fun to make, and a neat experiment with some new super cool electronics stuff! The Tensor gloves are a creation of author Brandon Sanderson, from his young adult novel Steelheart (which is awesome, go read it - actually go read everything he's written!). They are described as "thin glove[s]...[with] lines of metal along the front of each finger. The lines joined in a pattern at the palm and all glowed softly green." This commission was for my brother, who had made a set before but wasn't too happy with it. We collaborated on the plans, and he bought and shipped me the materials he wanted me to use. What you see here was the fruits of our discussions! We opted for: Adafruit Green Sequin LEDs Adafruit Conductive Thread and a 2-pack 2032 battery pack to power it all. Once it all arrived, I got to work! These suckers are bright! The thread sews really well, though if it frays it's hard to get it into the needle (can't wet it and twirl it like normal thread). And yes, that's totally done by hand. Took forever! I highly recommend both of these products, since they're so easy to use and work so well. The thread doesn't shock you, and only has issues if you try to ball your fist, since the wires cross at that point. Luckily the battery packs have on/off switches, so you can turn them off and eat, buy things, you know - the important things. :D Did some readjusting with the threads after some wires ended up not working well, and finally got all the fingers attached! Dabbed a tiny speck of superglue to where the thread connected to the LEDs just to make sure they didn't come untied - no soldering here, didn't want to burn the gloves! Once the fingers were done, I threw on the next five lights, this time in the palm. That one light gave me grief until the very end, when I finally gave up and added some solder to get the connection going. I also wrapped the wires to the battery with electrical tape to keep them from touching and shorting out. Left the wires hanging out though, to give it the hodgepodge wires 'n' metal look they're supposed to have. The wrist part of the glove was secure enough as well to hold the battery pack underneath and out of the way. One glove down, on to the other! The great thing about this build is it can totally be adapted to other genres. People were suggesting magic effects from various games and movies, and even my Mass Effect peeps were saying they were perfect for biotics! Future ideas..... ;) Anyway, my brother loved them, and most importantly the author himself loved them! My brother showed them to him, cosplaying as one of the main characters, Prof. All in all, a fun, simple build!
9 Comments
Reagan Larsen
11/30/2015 09:23:05 am
Wow! This is amazing! Almost exactly what I imagined from the book... I want to build some now!
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cameron
1/30/2016 08:36:26 am
That is awsom. I cant belive you made them. now I want to make som
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Karen
4/10/2016 07:49:30 pm
Hi, I was wondering whether I could buy one of these? Preferably shipped by the 15th. My son and I have tried and failed to make this item. Thank you for your consideration.
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Unfortunately it takes at least 2 weeks (maybe more, depending) for the company I get the materials from to get to me. I'd be willing to do it, but that timeframe alone makes it pretty much impossible I'm afraid. If you're still interested in me making it though, message me via the contact form and we can work out details!
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Brandon
8/28/2016 07:11:45 pm
I'm going as Limelight for Halloween and I would love to have a pair of these. Thing is, I'm completely terrible at making things like this, so I was wondering if you would indeed be willing to make some more and sell them?
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PhantomJ
10/25/2016 10:06:51 pm
Thanks for posting this! I wanted to cosplay as Prof so badly this year, but couldn't figure out how to do the tensor gloves until I saw this post! Mine look a fair bit different (I used the combat gloves from a different costume to up the cool factor and a different arrangement of lights) but the components are exactly the ones you linked.
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Andrew
7/30/2022 06:07:02 pm
What kind of gloves did you use?
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Matt
7/30/2022 10:14:04 pm
I honestly don’t remember. My brother bought them. These can be used with literally anything though, so I don’t imagine it would be difficult to find a set that works for you! :)
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