Telling a story visually

Every single element and feature of the Hazelnut Inn will faithfully tell a delightful story. Rather than words, visual details describe this tale.  According to legend, our intrepid explorer has gathered architectural artifacts from around the world and built her estate around them. Unfortunately, her journeys leave little time for mundane tasks such as maintaining the grounds. Accordingly, they have fallen into some disrepair. Guests will have the opportunity to explore the lush garden, filled with exotic plants half hiding many of the artifacts.

One of the features on display in the explorer's garden is a giant obelisk. It was acquired far away in the middle east and transported here. When they reassembled it it seems things didn't line up quite right. Not quite enough effort was put into the foundation. Necessary repairs were makeshift, a large steel bracket was anchored into the precious stone artifact. Still leaning badly, the tall stone obelisk succumbed to gravity and tumbled over where it still lays to this day. The steel bracket is twisted and broken, the anchors pulled roughly from the upper stone. The rust marks from the iron bracket remain as well. 

All these details are carefully crafted into the feature, on purpose, by bending and welding steel and hand carving the concrete as it set. The rust and weathering is actually skillfully applied paint. And the tumbled stones will in fact be carefully placed to appear as if they fell haphazardly into the garden. The top portions of the obelisk will act as a bench for those who care to sit and take it all in.

Dimensional logos on

As with most of our projects we use a variety of materials, methods and tools to make them a reality. The stills have a heavy duty framework of plasma cut steel which is all welded together. The tank and base will be hand sculpted fibreglass reinforced concrete and the logo is routed from Precision Board high density urethane. All of it will be painted and then aged using hand brushed acrylic paints. The bulk of the welding is now finished on the first of the stills for NEB's. I created the routing files for the dimensional logos yesterday and today we routed them on our MultiCam CNC router. They look great mounted to the stills! With the logos in place we could begin the dismantling of the first still. It came apart in two pieces and after building a sturdy carrying frame on wheels from square steel tubing we lowered the two halves into a horizontal position. They are much easier to work on in that position and they will be shipped to Ontario that way too. They will not be reassembled until they get to their permanent home.

Barrels sculpted!

Each day a little more of each project gets finished. This morning we gently lowered the giant barrel ends onto their wheels. Then we applied the fibreglass reinforced concrete onto the galvanized lath and when it had set a little we carved in the woodgrain. Once they've cured for a few days the barrels will be ready for the painting process to begin. Tomorrow we'll roll them out of the shop to make room for the next giant feature. It's the BIG one we'e long been anxious to start...