When I started in this business, many years ago, I was tasked with building a submarine and a space ship as large display pieces in a local tourist attraction. My skills were definitely limited back then and my tool selection even more so. So I had to improvise and be creative with what I knew. As I contemplated the design I went to out local hardware store to peruse the merchandise. I remember slowly going up and down the isles filling a shopping cart with all manner of random items. It wasn’t long until I attracted the attention of the owner. He was puzzled by my haphazard selection of hardware for nothing seemed go go together in the normal fashion. My buggy was overflowing with various bits of plumbing, electrical, housewares and many other random things. He asked what I was working on. My matter of fact answer was ‘a space ship and a submarine’. I suspect that he didn’t believe he carried parts for submarines and spaceships, but he did. My design and eventual build was based on those seemingly random parts and once painted they looked surprisingly authentic. Forty years later things haven’t changed in many ways. We do have many more skills and whole lot more experience. Our tool selection is something for which we are very grateful. We are able to design and build from scratch much of what we imagine. But we also frequently continue to rely on using common items in unusual ways when it makes sense. As I designed the world’s largest hand pump, the top curved lip I saw on antique pumps could be fashioned using a three foot wide domed end cap welded to the top of the two foot wide pump body. Our local steel supplier was able to source such a piece for us. Today, Peter cut the centre out of it and then fitted and welded the curved ring to the top of the pump. It looks absolutely perfect and was a whole lot easier and faster than fabricating something similar from scratch in our shop.
