We continue last minute preparations for the workshop that unofficially begins tomorrow afternoon. Mick, from Australia has been here since Sunday. Rhonda stopped in briefly late this afternoon to make sure she knew the way to our place. They, like all the others who are attending from near and far as our own crew are excited to begin the Sculpture Magic Workshop. Through the busy day I managed to squeeze in a little time here and there for some tack welds on Phoebe's dinosaur. It's looking pretty cool and measures a little more than twelve feet from his nose to the tip of his tail. I just need to fabricate the mailbox and position it and the claws before we begin the final welds to make his pose permanent.
No longer spineless
The days before we host the Sculpture Magic Workshop are always extra busy as we get everything shined up and ready for our guests. Add in a trip to the workshop in Denver last week and the installation and training on the new MultiCam plasma cutter this week and it the schedule quickly goes over the top. But it's all good and we will be ready when the guest arrive. I didn't have much opportunity to work on Phoebe's dinosaur mailbox today but I did squeeze in a few minutes after supper. I couldn't resist! I threw a pipe in the hydraulic bender to make a nice 'S' curve, and then slipped on about two thirds of the plasma cut vertebrae and rib cage pieces of the velociraptor. In a few minutes it came to life. This dino is no longer a spineless creature! He's going to be cool!
Cut to the bone
Today we fired up the new MultiCam plasma cutter for the first time. We gingerly loaded the heavy plate onto the router with the forklift. to The first project was Phoebe's velociraptor mailbox. The file covered about two thirds of a 4' x 8' she of 3/8 thick steel.
The robotic machine worked steadily for about an hour. The cut quality was fabulous. As the machine finished we pulled the cut pieces off the table. Even the freshest cuts were able to be handled with bare hands, warm but not hot to the touch. We had quite the pile of pieces, like a jigsaw right out of the box. Soon I'll begin the assembly of the fun piece.
