The Pumpkin Creek Rail Road sign is a very detailed piece from top to bottom. The train perched on top of the name board is modelled after the full sized version that runs at Vala’s Pumpkin Patch. There’s a whole lot of hours invested in this sign in sculpting and painting. It will be finished this coming week.
One more out the door
Each time we finish off a new feature we swing open the big magic shop doors and roll it outside. The shop is almost always full of other projects in progress with still more waiting their turn to be started when a little working space is freed up. The Harvest Barn Donuts sign was finished today. It’s a beauty and it is hard to believe the tree isn’t real wood but rather hand sculpted concrete. ‘Farmer Jack’ the scare crow character will be perched on top when the sign arrives at Vala’s farm in Gretna, Nebraska in about three weeks. This portion of the sign will barely squeak into the semi trailer as it is only one inch shorter than the ceiling of the van.
One more day of sculpting.
Mixing sculpting epoxy is a very tough job. I know this to be true for I’ve personally mixed thousands of pounds through the years. I often get asked what our secret is to mix so much epoxy each year. My answer is simple… Hire a student. This summer’s hire is Sidney, my nephew’s oldest son. It turns out he is the most prolific mixer of sculpting epoxy we have ever employed. Sidney mixed more than fifty pounds of sculpt today which is pretty impressive! He did other projects as well as he mixes faster than I can apply it. He’s a clever dude and invented a new method that works well for him. The two part epoxy is the consistency of plasticine and needs to be mixed in equal parts. It is rolled together by hand until it is thoroughly mixed. While we could use a machine for the task the reality is that the machine would have to be cleaned after each batch and that would be more work and take longer than mixing by hand. Once mixed the epoxy is applied by hand as well. The longer it sits unused the harder it gets so there is no point in mixing a whole lot at once. The Vala’s sign was routed from Precision Board and then I am sculpting a thin layer of epoxy over it to work out the details. One more day should finish this project and ready it for paint. To get a sense of scale the sign measures a whopping eight and a half feet tall and is about ten inches thick at its thickest point.
