There it is, in all it's cardboard goodness. This is the life size mock up of my project, now just imagine all the cardboard as frosted glass and you'll get an idea of how the final will look. While putting this together, the amount of information learned was great. The configuration had to be moved 3 times to get the spacing in the grid right, and that was the main purpose of this mock up, to figure out the spacing. The maquette was a, slightly flawed, model. This has been much more informative in terms of placement, in the space itself, and the spacing of the larger panes of glass.
One of my goals for this project is to stay fluid and roll with whatever comes down the pipe. Today was a great reminder for this attitude. I had wanted to get at least one column hung for my progress crit this Thursday, sadly this will not happen and it has to do with this guy here.
The image above is called a lapidary wheel, it's a large steel disk that turns at a high rate of speed. This type of wheel has several magnetic disks in many grit sizes, a typical selection is 80, 220, 400, 600, and cerium (final polish)... it's just like sanding wood, only with water. It has a water feed to keep glass dust contained and to keep the temperature of the glass cool while cold working. It also is the only way to finish the small glass pieces that need polished back to shiny glass goodness. The problem is I'm missing the next step in the polishing process, one was ordered for me but has yet to arrive. I tried going to another studio today, Glass Axis a public glass studio here in town. However they do not have the disk in the grit I need. I also tried using a wet belt sander as well, that marked the glass too differently so I will wait and use the same tools for consistent results.
Remember these, well due to my wonderful math skills... the photo above has changed into the photo below.
That's another 62 small pieces to bevel. It's not all bad in glassland though... they only need two steps in polishing to be finished. While waiting for the rest of the small glass pieces to arrive, I went ahead and kept working on the half that will need to be polished all the way. Today I did manage to get 30 of the new small pieces roughed in, I'll have them all finished in no time.
The two pictures above are showing the gluing process. I can get the small pieces that are going to be sandblasted in place and set, while continuing to work on other things. Like more grinding. All the small pieces need work of some kind, however all the large panes need the edges taken off so I don't cut my fingers while working. Last count was 18 had been worked on, leaving about 15 or so to do. If I get real sick of grinding glass I can keep gluing. The glue being used is called Hxtal (Hex-tall), it's a 2 part epoxy with an extremely long curing time. It takes a couple of days to set, a week to cure. Those aren't the same pieces of glass in the pictures by the way, they are 2 separate batches. Once the glue sets, those pieces come off the table and the new batch gets started.
Once the large panes are being glued, I can grind more glass, or go work on the hardware configuration. The picture above is the hardware layout for the top row of panes. Nice and clean, unfortunately I did not get a picture of the finalized layout I came up with today and will post it later.
The specialty hardware arrived and it is sexy, try to deny it.
This is most of what I have been up to since last crit. This doesn't include getting ready for sandblasting or ordering more hardware for the final hang. There has been a lot gone into this project with much more to go. It has been a lot of 18 hour days. It has been moving into the mindset of "This is my job".
That last sentence, I feel, can sum up how I'm feeling about everything right now in the program. This is my job, sure it is tough sometimes. Sometimes, it makes my head hurt. Sometimes it's scary, exciting, and awesome all at once. The entire time has been fun, and I hope my job stays like this forever.
