Sculpting a moose

Today we were busy in the shop as well as everything else. The moose got his skin. A thick coat of fiberglass reinforced concrete was first troweled on the armature. Sarah & Hailey did the mixing. Peter, Brando and I applied the mud.

Once the mud was set up enough it was time to carve in the detail. Fur was carved in and the waffle texture carved into the ide cream cone. It took about three hours to get everything right. We had to work quickly for everything was quickly turning into stone.

After a tough day of slinging and carving concrete the moose was complete and looking great!

Now we'll let him cure before paint. Tomorrow we'll use sculpting epoxy to finish his antlers and a few other details. Stay tuned...

-grampa dan

Christmas tree farm fence.

Today, Peter and the crew finished the last detail of the steel fence install for a customer. The fence is about a hundrd feet long nd has a person and auto gate. It features small evergreen trees to hide the posts and also appear randomly through the fence inbetween. The solid portion and the top bar undulate up and down. This meant every rung of the fence had to be carefully measured and then cut to size. This fence took a lot of care and effort to produce.

Although there are no words on this 'sign' The message is still subtly very apparent. The fence will aquire a natural rust patina over time. Another project is stroked off the list.

-grampa dan

Moose with a see-through skin

There are many stages to each project we do. The moose sign is coming along great. I still have to weld up the ice cram cone framework but we drageed it out of the shop today before it got too heavy. It was too tall to fit out of the door upright.

We finished putting the expanded lath on the moose. Although you can still see right through the skin of the moose the shape and much of the detail is readily evident. It is pretty cool!

It is almost time to apply and sculpt the concrete. Stay tuned...

-grampa dan