Back in the shop ....

I've progressed to the point where I can sit in the shop but not operate any machinery. What to do? Make some sculptures from styrofoam, natch! When I get a lot better, probably in a few weeks, I'll fire up the furnace and cast them in Aluminum.

Ever since I visited the Grand Canyon a few years ago I have wanted to make a sculpture that would convey the incredible feeling of being present there. I have tried a few pieces that have all failed and this one is the latest. It is the convergence of the Little Colorado with the Colorado at the Eastern end of the canyon. Not to scale, not very accurate, just an impression of my memory.

The styrofoam slices were cut on my homemade foam cutter - a piece of MIG wire, tensioned by a spring, and hooked up to a battery charger that you can see in the background. I cut the slices and used dabs of hot melt glue to hole them together.

While I was putting the rejected parts of the slices aside I noticed they had some pretty nice shapes. A little work with the glue gun and I had three more sculptures. These slices might be too thin to cast properly. However, unlike the first piece, I do not have a lot of time invested in them and I can cast them using a quick method with loose sand rather than petrobond which is more time consuming.

YouTube bored

My rehab has progressed to the point where there is not enough pain or books to occupy my attention so I turned to YouTube - for machining videos, natch! The different flavors are very interesting. The fall into amateur, educational, and sales.

In the sales category, all the video sales ads for CNC equipment remind me of a stripper bar - at least the ones I've seen in movies and TV since I've never never been in one. (How did I miss out all these years?) Anyway, the characteristics are pounding rock music, spewing fluids, and smoke. Does this really sell stuff, Matsusura?

Tormach has a much more cerebral approach with light electronic music and commentary on the machine operations, speeds, feeds, and tooling that are being used.

I'll keep my eye out for some other good ones.

My new best friend (s)

While I was in the recovery room immediately after knee surgery my surgeon walked in, said the operation went well, and patted the Continuous Passive Motion machine that had been delivered a few minutes earlier. 'This is your new best friend,' he said.

It seems that bad outcomes from knee joint replacement operations were mainly due to patients not doing the incredibly painful physical therapy. The solution; dope you to the gills, strap your leg into this contraption, and it bends your knee over and over again. There is some kind of mechanism in the plastic base, probably an acme screw, that pulls your foot up gently bending the knee and then pushes it back down. There are fleecy pads that hold everything in place, a nicely finished stainless steel structure for the machine, and controls for bend angle and bend rate.

Marguerite (friend #1), was my recovery room nurse. She got the fleecy pads on but struggled to figure out how to adjust the device correctly. The delivery guy (friend #2) was no help and quickly bailed. Marguerite recruited the occupational therapist (#3) and then the physical therapist (#4). No matter what they did the stainless steel bar at the end dug into my butt, and part of my leg was not supported. The machine was the wrong size they concluded. 'Don't worry' Marguerite said, 'You are moving to a room and I'll have a new one delivered.'

In my room I met my new nurse, Jensine (#5) who, in her way, was just as fabulous as Marguerite. Maybe it was the drugs but I don't think so - they were both fabulous. The new machine was delivered, set up, and I was strapped in again. The fit was much better but the bar at the end still dug into my butt. After a half hour of bending I noticed that my thigh was moving sideways in a weird way. 'It's broken,' Jensine said and sure enough one of the welds had given way. My TIG welding of stainless sure isn't the greatest but I expected a little better from the medical machine manufacturers.

A third machine was delivered, and Jensine recruited the nurse across the way (#6) to help. She took one look and said, 'The pads are on backwards." Sure enough, a little switcheroo, and I was in the bending business with no pains in my butt. Thank you, thank you!!!

Before I left the hospital my surgeon paid a last visit. 'We like patients to use these machines at home for a few weeks but your insurance doesn't cover it. Do you want to rent one on your own or just do the physical therapy exercises?" I demurred on the machine.

Theft - the chandelier saga

Good artists copy. Great artists steal. This is an unsourced quote of Picasso who might well have stolen it from T.S. Eliot ("Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal"). Why this quote? Maybe I am trying to rationalize my theft because, for some reason, I am a terrible designer. I always start working on a piece thinking if it goes badly I can fix it up later. Artists can usually pull this off, can cover up, or can even ignore flaws. Designers have to get everything right in their execution.

But to the point, my wife and I were in Design Expo, the fancy Home Depot, getting some track lighting for the kitchen. I noticed a very nice looking light (Hunter-Conroy Geometry Light) and thought it would be great for the dining room ceiling. They had a sale so I talked myself into paying $200 for the light which, as seems typical of of Design Expo, was out of stock. Two months later, it finally came in and when I was installing it I noticed that one of the components was off by about 1/4" - it was not square. I tried to convince myself it would not matter - but it did. So I returned it, waited another month, and then they told me it was no longer available. At this point I had to have the light so I started thinking how to make one.

The design was four rectangles of square tube, each containing a rectangular halogen light. I could not locate a square halogen light but I could find round ones. So I changed the design from squares to linked circles. Solving the light problem I now had to figure out how to bend square tube into circles. Not sloppy circles, but nice circles. Moreover they had to be joined together nicely because in design you simply can not fake bad workmanship. This was beyond my skills, I had met my match. But I still had light lust in my heart and satisfying that lust was worth two hundred bucks.

A few weeks later we were in Design Within Reach buying a couple of chairs. I wandered around and saw a very cool chandelier. $2,600 was a little more than the $200 I was willing to spend but the more I looked at it the more I thought I could make something like it. You be the judge -- is my chandelier a copy or a theft? (Note: the pic in this blog entry is the DWR chandelier).

Postscript: after I finished the chandelier I got a new catalog from King Architectural Metals, a great resource for fancy gates and fences. They now carry square tube circles so maybe my first idea is something I can make.

Metal yards part 2 - Drops and Cut Offs

The first metal yard I patronized was Alco Iron and Metal in San Leandro. I was referred there by my welding instructor, an attractive lady blacksmith, who said she got great prices with a little flirting. The best deals, she told me, were 'cut-offs' or the left over pieces when they cut something for another customer.

When I went down there I knew flirting would not work. I'm not gay and neither are the guys in the yard. But I did remember to ask for cut-offs and was eventually given directions to an area of shorter pieces, all jumbled together, and was gratified to get a discount. Service at Alco turned out to be reserved for big orders and little orders like me got short shrift from the yard guys and the counter guy. And, should you wonder, every person in a metal yard is a guy.

Several months later I discovered Naylor Steel in Hayward. Viva la difference! A much smaller operation than Alco but everything was organized. The yard guys were helpful, efficient, and even loaded up my truck. However when I asked for 'cut-offs' I got a blank look. When I explained, they said, "Oh, you mean 'drops.' " They too were neatly organized in bins according to shape and size. At the front counter is a display showing every steel shape they have in stock, measuring tapes you can borrow, and wipes to clean your hands if you forget to bring gloves.

Naylor is 20 minutes further than Alco, but they got my business.

Carhenge and my dream

An email from a friend about big cubes somehow reminded me of Carhenge . It was designed by Jim Reinders, student of Stonehenge, and built by his family and friends. It is a memorial, a tourist attraction, and many people think it is a kind of joke - or at least something to smile about or perhaps smile at.

Having wandered about Carhenge several times there is also a quality of mystery about the space just like it's namesake, there is a way the dolmenic shapes organize the space of the plains, and there is the surprise of seeing an Edsel.

Wonderful things can happen when artists intersect with junk. As for my dream, it is to someday be artist in residence in a scrap yard.

Metal yards - starting with junk

Just as wood comes in shapes so does steel. There are only six; bar, rod (square and round), tube, pipe, plate, and sheet. That's it. When I was a beginning wood sculptor, I would find interesting branches and roots, and then combine them with machine cut wood or plywood to make a sculpture. Eventually my technique improved so I could do whatever I wanted. My method evolved from starting with a branch to visualizing the finished piece and then making it.

When I first started to make welded sculpture I barely could weld two pieces of steel together. I could not 'see' a finished piece in my head and fabricate it. I started visiting junk yards, looking for odd pieces of steel in the same way I looked for branches and roots. To the chagrin of my neighbor, I filled my driveway with junk metal so I would always have an interesting piece to kick start the creative process.

My favorite yard was South Bay Metals in Gilroy. They had acres of treasures so every time I got down to Gilroy I would stop by. A few years ago I would never have revealed this treasure lest other artists get the good stuff. This treasure can be revealed because, alas, they were not making enough money in the scrap business and started cleaning up the yard. The acres of treasures have been reduced to just a few desultory containers. I still stop by but it is not the same.

Fortunately my technique has improved to the point where I no longer need a piece of inspiring junk to get me started. I am not as facile with steel as I was with wood but I am pretty much to the point visualizing the piece and then being able to fabricate it. And I have (mostly) cleaned up my driveway.