Turning on the light - sensibly.

A while back I posted about the various types of lights we were considering putting into our shop to replace the old T-12's tube lightingc and halogen high bays which were obsolete and failing badly. We had put it off as long as we could. The choices were many. We could upgrade to newer style flourescents. T-8's were inexpensive but not as efficient as T-5's. LED tubes were better than the T-5's and contained no mercury. The old sodium highbays also needed replacing with many choices there as well including LED's which were only marginally more expensive if we included the installation costs. We decided to do some tests. We brought in some sample lights and then did the comparisons with the lights in place.

The most expensive option in the short term were LED tubes in place of the old flourescents. But we did some long term math and factored in the cost of purchasing, installing, powering, and maintaining them over their lifetime. We compared those costs with the other style lamps. After weighing all the choices we decided to go with the LED's.

The lighting conversion is now complete and the LED tubes and new fixtures proved to be less than I had budgeted for which was a nice surprise! The workspace is brighter than ever. It is great light to do our painting in as we selected the right temperature for that task. We are confident the electric bill will be less than before and that the lights will brighten the shop for a long, long time with little maintenance.

There were also some surprise benefits too. One was that the LED lights emit no UV and so do not trigger the self-darkening welding helmets we use. When we are welding high structures we aren't frustrated by the helmets continually darkening every time we look upwards, before we strike our arcs. There is no buzzing or flickering which makes the shop a lot quieter and the lights much less annoying. The work studio feels more inviting and brighter.

Like anything on the leading edge of technology the target is moving quickly. There will undoubtably be newer and better models just around the corner. Costs will quickly come down on future products as well as they become more popular but we needed to install new lights now and could wait no longer. After making the jump to light speed we are delighted.

We feel that LED lighting has finally come of age.

-grampa dan

It's a sign

I still consider myself a sign guy, even though we do so much more than just make signs. Because of this I get excited when it is time to create an imaginative dimensional sign.

This week the first two of many signs are in the works. The first is the Treasure Quest sign for the kid's play area. The concept design started off very much like the sign for the kid's play area in Cultus Lake Adventure Park but I wasn't worried for I knew we would tweak it as production started.

With the heights of our project limited to seven and a half feet( by the shipping containers ) the parrot had to move down the tree and now will sit on a lower branch. We'll now sculpt a stack of gold coins on top and a pearl necklace draped over the sign, alluding to the treasure hidden in the park. This tree will get it's sculpted concrete skin later this week and the parrot sculpt will follow soon after that.

The second sign was started about ten months ago when I sculpted Cookie as a demo piece at our Sculpting Magic Workshop last fall. The bottom of the sign which he sits on is now carved and the final assembly and paint will happen this coming week.

More signs are in the beginning stages as well and pretty soon our shop will look a lot like a colorful theme park with my favorite kind of sign at every turn. Stay tuned to watch the progress...

-grampa dan

It's back!

The very first concept drawing I did for the Skallywag Bay Adventure Park project was a fancy gate befitting the Gruffle pirate theme. It's an idea I've harbored in my head for almost a decade. But changes in the master plan meant we didn't need the sign and so the idea was tucked away once more. In the last week we made some last minute changes to the park, moving the entrance building into the courtyard and creating a ticketing area in front of the building. This area needed to be fenced and the gate was suddenly back on the table.

In the last year we have modified the theme just a little and included a little SteamPunk style into the features. The gate too recieved this treatment. While we were at it I added diagonal braces, changed out the skull and changed the lettering to match the park logo.  The front gate for Skallywag Bay now lookis like this...

This is going to be FUN!

-grampa dan