Henry insisted one accompanying me out to the shop this evening as I was gathering things I needed for my trip tomorrow. He wanted to ‘go to work’ with me. He found everything in the shop fascinating for he doesn’t get inside the building very often. During working hours it is simply too dangerous. We walked around the shop and looked everything over. All of it was interesting to this little boy. Henry decided he wanted to ‘drive the car’ we are starting to build. I set up the tires and rolled the chair to the middle. He then hopped on and got the very first test drive.
Ready for paint
The fish submersible is now ready for paint at last. There’s more than two hundred pounds of sculpting epoxy one this little project. While we could have done it much faster using concrete the level of detail we achieved using epoxy is much higher, which is well suited to a trade show display where thousands of people will see and touch it over the four days of the IAAPA EXPO. I look forward to watching the painting crew work their magic over the next week or so. Then we’ll install it onto it’s base in the display, pack it up and send it off to Orlando. Stay tuned…
Change in mid-stream
I seem to always underestimate the time it takes to do our projects and today’s work on the fish submersible was no exception. I had planned to finish the sculpting today but there was much more to do than met my eye. We first finished the rough coat inside of the mouth. Then I worked on installing the windows, trim rivets and barnacles in that area. This afternoon Grant and I did the final coat of sculpting epoxy inside the mouth. This meant it was at last time to tackle the teeth. I installed about half of the long tapered teeth I had fashioned but halted work to debate one last time before continuing. After some discussion we decided the fish looked far too mean and menacing with the sharp teeth… not our style in the least. After trying a few things we settled on some industrial linear gear style teeth. But by then it was quitting time. Tomorrow, the fish will get the last of it’s choppers and the needed barnacles in this area to finish things off and make him ready for paint at last!
