The giant flower lamps we did for Castle Fun Park turned out great. Vala’s Pumpkin Patch loved them so much they wanted some for their storybook land. But, as is our style we didn’t want to simply repeat ourselves. So we upped the game by including things we wished we could have last time around. This time the flower pedals won’t be flat. I thought out a design and then tried things out by making a paper cutout. The pedal halves were easily bent and fit together. So I repeated this idea in the computer software and sent it to the CNC plasma cutter. The FastCut CNC cut the three flowers perfectly from 10 gauge steel. Then I described to Keith how they should be bent and welded together. It sounded simple except for the fact he needed to build some special jigs to bend the pedals perfectly. The first flower took much longer than he anticipated. The second one was faster. By the third flower, Keith was an expert and he could do it quick and easy. This is how almost every project goes in our shop as we continually up the ante and raise the bar with every project.
Bubbles
I’ve been eagerly waiting to start an enjoyable project for Stocker Farms. The dimensional sign is for Bubble’s Barn with a rotund pig enjoying a luxurious bubble bath in an old clawfoot bathtub. The sign will be mounted to the roof of a small building that houses a bubble attraction for younger kids visiting the farm. Most of the fully dimensional sign will be hand-formed using epoxy sculpt over a welded steel armature. I routed the sign faces from 1.5” thick Precision Board HDU this morning to kick the project into gear. Next week we’ll glue up the signs and begin welding up the armature. I can hardly wait to begin the fun!
Heads or tails?
The crew worked their magic today as they transformed the bare armatures into the fully sculpted head and tail sections of the dragon. These will be allowed to cure into next week before the painting crew begins to add the bright colours. This is going to be a spectacle when finished. Stay tuned…
