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Pouring the Crescents

We fell in love with Kokomo Opalescent Glass (KOG) quite a while ago. With our passion for Steampunk, it is a perfect match- Art glass still made the Victorian Way. Achoo, Christmas and Dinner Time all had KOG inserts in some of the gears. Nan has custom cut circles that get switched in and out of googles, and we used it as inserts for our Steampunk Christmas Ornaments. When designing this piece, there was no doubt in either of our minds that KOG glass would look just as cool in Stainless Steel gears as it did in Wooden ones. We wanted to do something a bit different than just filling the “spoke holes” with glass, so Dave designed cutouts in two of the biggest gears- at the top and the bottom. This meant custom designing the molds as well, but finally the time arrived to pour the crescents.

First they have to warm up the pouring table:

Then, the pour itself:

KOG has also done a nice write up with photos that include the crescent after it cooled, where you can see the turquoise blue color.

Sometimes you have to go “old school”…

Some people think clutter is just a mess, but I love creative clutter. Right now, our driveway and garage are the epitome of creative clutter. When you are building an 8ft tall, 2000 lb statue, you need a little elbow room. Since a large pole building is not yet a reality for us, the drive substitutes as a creative studio.

Although a lot of the descaling and polishing can be done with Die Grinders and DA Power Sanders (that’s Dual Action – also known as “Orbital”), some of the gear sections are too small and require the old school approach. It is back breaking, arm tiring, hot and sweaty work.

The video shows both filing and emory paper action, as well as Dave in action 😉 The big gear he is is working on in the photos and the video was inspired by this wooden gear we designed about 18 months ago:

Pieces and Parts.. yet another path..

While Stephen’s is finishing up welding and straightening the base, and while Kokomo Opalescent Glass is working on getting our test pours done, we received all the other pieces of metal… a big stack of not so shiny stainless.

Time to lay them out and check the rough fit. This is actually a nerve grinding step- remember that up until this point, the statue was a series of measurements and CAD files, if something had been off, the pieces would need significant work to fit and assemble. We will have another moment like this when the base is delivered and we assure that all of these pieces fit to the base. Luckily, Dave’s CAD skills proved out and the pieces lay out gorgeously.

Welding the base

We are lucky to be working with a Stainless Steel welding expert at StephensMachine to get the base welded.The stability of the base is critical to the statue, and they have equipment beyond our basic welding equipment that gives us the desired result in both function and appearance. Before the final weld, the piece is placed and spot welded to position it well.

Stainless Steel is particularly prone to warp when welded, so after welding, the entire base needed to be heated and then straightened to ensure that it was not warped.

The end result looks great and we will be getting our hands on it soon, so we can continue the finishing process along with all the other gears already underway.

The Path to Shiny

Almost everyone has a mental image of Stainless Steel as smooth and almost reflectively shiny. However, it does not start life that way. There are many potential paths to shiny, and this week was dedicated to mapping it out for When The Earth Moves. To get the finishes we want, (they will be different for the gears and the fixtures ), and there will be a variety of steps from acid treatments, disc grinding, die grinding and orbital sanders. The sanding will range from 80 grit to 120.

Why so much work? Besides the fact that the steel comes in fairly “crusty”, the water jet leaves marks as it cuts as well. This is a gear tooth as it comes from the cutter. Note all of the horizontal gauging and scratches in the steel from the cuts. This is not at all the look and feel of the gear that we want, so the surface has to be finished to get the right effect.

You can see the difference when you look at another tooth on the same gear, after acid, disc grinding and lots of sanding at various grits- this is the shiny smooth finish that is the goal. At about 20 minutes ( for the edges, not the faces) per tooth, and 94 teeth in the statue, plus faces, spokes and cutouts, you can understand why we often say that Art is a Labor of Love.

Prepping the glass molds

It is time for the project to take on parallel paths.

While Stephen’s Machine shop starts to weld the base, we get to start working with Kokomo Opalescent Glass to get the glass inserts poured. We had the molds cut in the extra space of the steel plates to save time and money, but this meant that Dave had to attach some sort of lift handle on them so that the glass folks can handle them.

For now, welding for us means a trip up to Dave’s folks’ farm and using his dad’s shop. We picked up the parts and supplies we needed to be working with Stainless Steel ( not the normal welding material on a farm),and headed north.
For Dave, working in his dad’s shop is like tapping directly back into a long family history.

This is the shop he has welded in for decades, and there are metal clamps he works with when welding here that are older than he is.

The goal for the day was to makeshift lift hooks that KOG would be able to use to move the one inch thick stainless molds around. There are two molds- the bat for the bottom gear and the crescent moon shape that is in the top gear. Dave ended up bending some stainless screw hooks and welding them onto the tops of the molds to make a lift system that can easily have a rod inserted through.

Getting the alignment perfect so that a metal rod can be inserted means careful measurements and lots of clamps to hold things in place until they get tacked down by the first welds.

Watching him work this weekend reminded me that it is true- you really never can have too many clamps in the shop.

First Welding Consult

All of the steel parts came back from being cut at the water jett shop and we had our parts check and first welding consult with the folks at Stephen’s Machine Shop in Kokomo yesterday. That is Ken ( on the right) and Steve ( on the left)- who are working with us to get the base prepped and welded. We decided to work with folks who weld Stainless all day every day to ensure that the base is completely secure. We also believe that art is collaborative and like to work with local professionals who can help us out.

Parts check means that we go through stacks of parts, checking cut, sizing and fit. We also needed to talk through where the base welds need to be placed and how to avoid warpage to the stainless as much as possible.

The big gears came back stunningly gorgeous, we could not be more pleased.

This is the base gear – you can see the flat edge where it gets welded down to the base plate.

The long bats will get filled with Kokomo Opalescent Glass, and the rounds will remain open.

Parts checking is not just all marveling at the beauty of the pieces and playing with forklifts.

It is also time for careful measurement checks – here you can see Ken with his calipers, checking hole sizes; lining up pieces to make sure that the alignments came out correctly, and lots of talking and planning. Once the pieces are welded, it is too late to find out about misunderstandings or mis-communications. Like any other project, the up front planning is critical to success. We were very pleased with the amount of time and thought Ken and Steve contributed to making sure that the piece gets done correctly.

They will start the actual welding within a week, and we will get the chance to video tape for you, so watch for updates.

A Gear is born…

The top gear is being lifted from the water cutter table. It’s cool to think that a 1 inch thick slab of metal has been carved into shapes by high pressure water.

The parts are to be delivered this week to Kokomo to be prepped for assembly.

Metal Delivery and the Cutting begins…

Activity on the Statue for the City of Kokomo is really starting to get rolling.

As much as possible, it is our policy to use local businesses and local labor when we need services, and we are enjoying working with Stephens Machine in Kokomo for some of the metal work. The sheets of Stainless Steel got delivered this week- you can see the sheet of half inch steel on the forklift here. This is used for the bracing and structural elements of the statue, and the one inch steel is what the gears themselves will be cut from.

As we prepped for delivery ,my email stream became flooded with the discussion between David and Stephen’s- this up front conversation is critically important and harkens back to the old adage of “Measure Twice, Cut Once”. Numbers and measurements on a CAD file are one way of communicating, but there is often more than one way to achieve the same results and the process can have a big impact on the final results. The discussion was a great collaboration – Stephens is a really great partner in this endeavor.

The steel is being cut with a Waterjet.

Although a plasma cutter could cut steel of this thickness, it would leave burn marks on the edges, which would destroy the clean look we have designed. Water jetting is an interesting process, where high pressure water with small garnet particulates becomes the “blade” that cuts through the steel. In this close up image, what looks like a drill bit is actually a small stream of water.

The Surface in these pictures looks brownish because of the small garnet particles that are in the water. wider view of the waterjet cutting so you can see multiple parts We anticipate that water jetting will continue through the end of Monday, and then the parts will be delivered back to Kokomo sometime mid-week. For us, that begins the fun of finishing, assembly and welding.

We never finish Learning.

Over 40 and and still learning….

I had one of those moments today where something really drove home the idea about what it means to learn and how we really never stop.

As a kid growing up on a farm I learned so many things even though I hated most of the lessons. Things like pulling nails from boards so they could be reused or welding up some scrap metal to solve a problem. I reflected back to the day that my father handed me the stick welder and asked me to try.

As I grew up, I guess that I never stopped trying things or learning from my father and grand father. I had to be reminded of it again today that learning is not always about the manual, its about watching, trying, asking, and communicating with others.

The above picture is my father showing me a little better way to weld some tubing. I was having some trouble with slag.