I spent the bulk of my time today making sparks in the shop today. I kept the plasma cutter busy at cutting brackets and pieces for the front assembly of the train. I welded on the pieces as fast as they came off the machine. By quitting time I had the boiler in place as well as the smokestack and related rigging along with the armature for the remaining hand sculpt. There's still the front number plate frame to fabricate and the whistle pipes to weld into place and then the crew can finish off the sculpting. We've had to make a few changes and alterations as necessitated by the realities of fitting everything mechanical inside the body but it won't be long until the train engine looks a lot like the model we built so long ago.
Sign bracket
A sign bracket should, in my opinion be far more than an afterthought, something that merely holds up a sign. The bracket should be designed into the sign from the start, both to hold the sign securely in place and also to fit in with the story which the sign is telling. It was fun to combine various elements and pieces for this one. A plasma cut steel leaf is yet to be added inside the pipe circle. The Toad Stool Elixer sign is now assembled and ready for the sculpting process to begin.
Brew sign start
This work week is going to be a fun one as Peter and I work to create the four pub signs. Our design work is largely done. I've got a bit of a jump on him as my first one had already been carved on the MultiCam CNC router. It's time for some hand carving on the sign plus some welding of the framework and bracket before we get to final assembly. Then I'll do the hand sculpting of the mushroom and then onto the paint. While all that's going on I'll have the machine whittle the second sign.
