Assembling boats - soldering

 

My intention regarding the assembling of the bits for my 100 boats was to get a welder to spot weld the  pieces together. The welder asked me why I wouldn't just solder them together myself and save the expense.

There were three reasons for my not doing this task. First, I only have the use of one eye and am often fearful about flames and spitting metal - crazy when you think of all the other things I do - so a pair of safety glasses dealt with that as they do in all my work. Secondly, I did not have a small gas soldering iron - dealt with by Fiona and I purchasing the small unit below. The third reason - lack of skill - to be dealt with by following the instructions on the packet; doing a few practice runs; and dredging up knowledge from my high school days and a jewellery workshop I did.

Anyway as you can see from the opening photo I have assembled 20 boats.  

A few process photos follow including a very busy work bench.  After soldering a few of the boats I began to work out techniques that would make life easier for me including cutting grooves into the sail and hull so I could lock the pieces together for soldering; holding the pieces at different angles in the vice; and shaping small lengths of solder into u shapes so that they stayed in place as I applied the flame to the metal.

I now need to form another 80 hulls and progressively solder the pieces together over the next couple of months. My soldering is not as good as the professional welder; but now I can say the whole of each boat is my work. I need to be able to transport100 of the boats to Scotland in early August for the exhibition in September.

A whole lot of metal sails

 

I have finally finished the 100 sails for my fishing boats as you can see from the photo below. 

I was conscious of the noise that repetitive hammering of 80 plus sails would make so I decided to press the sail form in my 12 tonne hydraulic press and a wooden form as you can see from the photos below. 

The wooden form has been in use for about 10 years now and is starting to show its age as you can see from the opening photo. Leather gloves are essential when holding the large metal dome as it sits a little precariously in the press. The metal dome is designed to be held in a vice by the white metal tongue and the dome hammered on. I used it like that with a hard nylon hammer to give the sails a finishing touch. The dome and press are basically car workshop tools. The dome weighs several kilos.

I will heat treat all the sails to give them an aged look - look a bit more like used old calico.

Reflections - Loch Loyal

 

On our way to our Maleny home we took the inland route through the highlands. This road is one of our favourites - not because it is a great road; but rather because of the highland beauty.

The day we drove it was very cloudy-overcast; but not raining and not windy. As we came towards the bottom of Loch Loyal we were stunned by the beauty of the reflections of the clouds, mountains and the boat shed on the loch's almost mirror still surface. I share a few of those wonder moments.

There are times when one knows that one has experienced something grand - that was one of those moments.

Almost on an industrial scale

 

Before we went to Scotland I had finished forming 20 boat hulls and 20 sails. These are part of the 100 boats for the fisher installation in the Scottish exhibition in September. So that means I need to get cracking on the other 80 plus a few spares. The opening photo shows 85 folded and cut copper pieces for the boat hulls. The photo below shows containers holding metal for both sails and hulls - packed up before going to Scotland

Following are a few images of: the folding of the last 20 or so copper blanks, marking up the folded metal,  cutting in the guillotine and the heap of offcuts beside the guillotine after cutting 85 forms.

Ending with another photo celebrating patina.

The next steps are to hammer the 85 forms, open them into hulls and grind the sharp edges off. I will probably get on to that this coming week. You can understand the title when you think about the effort one puts into such a huge multiple production.

Metal cottages - I must be in my Maleny workshop

 

We arrived back to our Maleny home yesterday morning. We are still jet lagged; but given it is Friday I felt I could do a couple of hours in the workshop.

When we return to Scotland for the exhibition in September we will also be doing a couple of markets so my mind is turning to product. I think small pewter cottages (3cm long, 2.5cm high and 2cm wide) could sell. I have experimented with two moulds - graphite and sand. I think the sand works best; but I need to form the sand mould for each pour - see the sand mould above ready for a pour.

Photos following show the poured metal - a heart as a by-product; and the mould after removing the formed cottage.

I was not totally happy with the graphite mould cottages -see below. I have decided to grind them - see photo below.

I think the two cottages complement each other - one has the sand mould marks; and the other has the ground makes.

I will probably at least 6 of each for the markets.

Stone cottages for Skerray

 

One of the pieces I want to make for my exhibition Betrayal and Loss will be an installation of about 5 stone cottages hewn from stones gathered from 5 fishing coves along the north coast. Earlier in this visit I cut a cottage for Armadale cove. More recently I was able to collect a couple of stones from the rock beach at Skerray harbour. Quite a number of the stones on this beach have pink and beige tones. As you can see from the photo above I have done the rough cut for two cottages.

I keep the chipping-offcuts from the stone cutting as these will be part of the installation - to tell the story of the hard work the cleared farmers had to create their cottages on the rocky coastal plots of land they were cleared to. Below is a photos of the two cottages and clippings stored on a shelf in the garden shed-studio.

Following are photos of the cutting process. Cutting has to be done outside - lots of fine stone dust - there were scudding tiny showers as you can see from the droplets of rain on the stones. The pinkish stone below is quite crystalline in nature.

I have yet to gather stones from 3 other coves - but that will need to be left until I return.

Assemblage No.2 in the charred series.

 

Fiona and I have been having a bit of fun creating small assemblages for the cottage grounds from salvaged used pine fence posts. Fiona has done an initial blog post on her assemblage; and will do more in the future. 

The work we have been doing has included charring-burning the timber of the assemblages as you can see from my opening photo and the burning photos below.

We let the charred timber cure outside before adding adding rust and stone elements.

The following photos are of the finished piece which is about 60-70cm long and 50-55cm high. The larger rusted elements are vintage worn wood plane blades that I purchased at a village market on Orkney.

The small stone on the assemblage is from Armadale fishing cove; and the rusty bit is a rusted handmade nail. Some folk think the piece looks like church steeples; but in fact it was simply a reaction to the shapes of the fence post point offcuts.