Fishing boats and crofters cottages

 

The furnace was in full operation today - melting salvaged Selangor pewter and forming wee boat hulls and cottages. I salvage, chop up and melt Selangor pewter objects (goblets and mugs) as they don't have lead content.

The opening photos shows four wee boats (8.5-9cm long: and the photos below show four wee cottages  (about 3-3.5cm long). You can see the imperfections on the cottages - each is cast individually in sand - hence sand textures in the metal.

The boat hulls are poured into a graphite mould I cut; and the cottages are poured into metal moulding sand. The boat sails are made from salvaged patinated copper. Some process photos follow.

The boats and cottages will make their way to Scotland and appear as part of the Pop Up Art Show in the Armadale Village Hall at the end of August.

Wee fleet of wee magic metal boats

Little time was available over the weekend to do art work; so why not use it to create a wee fleet of wee metal boats - above and below.

Melting recycled metal can result to some unusual colours - contaminants in the metal? Still - when I get rainbow and purple colours they are to be celebrated.

A few more process shots follow.

This wee fleet most likely will make its way to markets in Scotland

Three days to set up

 

Fiona and I have finished setting up the exhibition which will open tonight Friday 1 September). The set up was done over 3 days - mostly full days. Day 1 signage opening photo of the start; Day 2 creating the wave and cabinets; and Day 3 installing the work. This blog post is a snapshot of the 3 days.

Day 1 photos follow.... including lots of layout calculations - we had never installed vinyl signage before. We had the signage made at home and brought it over in a roll.

Satisfied signage installers admiring their work!!!!

Day 2 including bringing a large barrel over in the van to use it to form the wave; putting the display table together after it was moved into place; building the display cabinets - creating the wave is for another blog. Even the setup team pause for a wee cuppa and a few nuts!!!

Day 3 installing the work including the 100 boats - again the van came in handy to bring all the stuff from the cottage to the Strathnaver Museum Annex.

Below - Fiona counting the boats - we both had about 5 goes each to count the boats attached - in the end there are 103 boats including 3 wrecks. As you can see from the cabinet on the right Fiona has done a grand job of displaying the other words including didactics - but that is for Sunday's blog.

On Sunday I will blog on the full set up and opening

Done and dusted

 

Today I sent Fiona a Signal from the workshop that I was done and dusted and was heading home for lunch. This was a milestone - I had just completed the last bit of soldering, bending of wires and grinding on the last 30 boats I have been working on over the weekend. In all I have completed 113 boats for the art piece I have planned. The photo above shows a few of the boats hulls and masts drying after they have had excess flux scrubbed off them.

The photo below shows the 30 boats on the bench top.

Following are a few progress images - I like how the brass rods create a bit of interest.

Below are a couple of photos of the last boat to be soldered.

And then a container full of boats to carry home for packing for Scotland.

This has been a big job - very satisfying - but also quite exhausting in terms of the number of boats and the concentration required in carrying out so many steps. Yep - done and dusted. The only time I or anybody else will see the 100+ boats together will be when they are installed for the exhibition.