AbFlex

Bigger than life…

Do you want your products to be Bigger Than life?…
Then S&F would like to BUILD them for you...Bigger Than Life.  
This is a 5 times scale, exact replica,of an AbFlex Abdominal Exerciser a working digital display, that appeared in the Abflex infomercial. 
When Ab-Flex introduced it  abdominal exerciser on a 30 minute TV infomercial, they wanted to make a Big impression…The exerciser itself was only 24 inches long, by 15 inches wide.  They wanted their spokes person to walk around it and point out the high tension rubber flexing system the incremented retraining bar and the hand grip that was sculpted by a designer to fit perfectly  into the hands and forearms.  The real flexor was molded in shiny black plastic and contained a digital gauge that lighted up to measure the force of the pull as the athlete  was operating it.
There P.R. people told us. "We need an exact replica, AND it has to be able to stand up to stage lights and close range camera shots...It had to be precise and it has to look real.”

With that, our team of designers and crafts men went to work...
1st …We photo graphed the actual machine from a distance of 20’in order to minimize vanishing point distortion. We took  face, back, top, bottom and side shots.
2nd…We blew up the shot to 5 X’s  the original size of the machine, we glued them on patern board and created templates of each view…
3rd…All of the individual components were then shaped from a combination of birch ply wood and high-density foam board.
4th…We coated all of the components in a high solids primer and finish coated them in a hi-gloss polyester resin and buffed and polished them to produce a plastic looking high gloss, wet shine.  This is the same finish that is used on high end electric guitars.
5th…We fitted a conventional flat screen (minus the frame work) into a MDF shaped-box and covered it with a plexi-glass mask that allowed the screen to show through the openings razor cut through the mask.
6th…Then we created a 2 minute animation in 3-d studio that illuminated the appropriate areas on the screen in sequence and loaded it into a laptop computer that was connected via a concealed cable.  This created a working visual tat repeated every 2 minutes.
7th…We created a vinyl graphic package and applied it to the sides an top.
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Abflex exerciser		Abflex promotional photo		Components were shaped from enlarged photos		Sanding & Shaping
Body was shaped in HI-density fiber board & covered in Po		Fabricating the rubber band		Abflex base is prepared for primer coat		Abflex base is coated with polyester primer
Abdominal rest is coated and sanded		Body was coated in black polyester resin then polished to		A flat screen monitor is assembled into a new frame work		Programming the Flex meter and digital output
Programming the Flex meter and digital output 3		Programming the Flex meter and digital output 1		Sequencing lights in computer		Programming the Flex meter and digital output 5
Digital Output		Abflex is ready to ship		Design team technicians & fabricators pose for a picture		Ab-flex is delivered to sound studio in Burbank
Recording studio in Burbank