Soldering fishing boats

 

To say I soldered fishing boats sounds quite simple given there are only three elements to be connected - hull, mast and sail. This blog post gives a bit of an insight into the many steps to arrive at the competed form above. There is lots of action on the workbench.

It all starts with the making of the three components: sail, hull mast.

The first soldering step is to solder mast into hull after the hull has been drilled, the drill hole cleaned and the mast ground to remove oxidation. Soldering is done by holding mast and hull in a vice. I use a small spiral of solder over the mast.

Before soldering the sail to the hull I slightly bend the sail entry hole so the mast will sit well, cut a groove into the sail and hull so they can lock together when held in the vice for heating with small soldering torch. The area to be soldered it coated with flux.

I create and cut small u shaped bits of solder to hook around the sail and mast for heating with small soldering torch after coating the soldering areas with flux.  I usually solder both sides - bit of over engineering bot I want the boats to be strong.

After the soldering is finished the boats are soaked in hot water and then scrubbed with a brush and soap to remove excess flux.

The boats are then ready for the top of the mast to be trimmed and ground; and the installation mounting wire to be formed into shape so it can lock over a 25mm square mesh. Boats are ready for installation.

A bit of this and that

 

The photos above and below were me having a bit of fun whilst water blasting the sludge off the floor in G's orchid house.

G doesn't have a lot of orchids out at the moment - almost winter - but the one below is a beauty.

Last night I was able to capture the sunset, newish moon and evening start in the one photo - below. I like the grainy look of the closer shot.

It was a very dew laden morning  - I love the photo of the bee crawling into a dew laden flower; and footprints of a wallaby crossing the road after walking on dew laden grass.

The birds were out to soak up the rising sun.

More of that dew on blossoms.

Beautiful forms, beautiful metal

I love how some melted metal (pewter plus a bit of brass) pours result in such beautiful rainbow effects on the surface of the melted metal such as can be seen above.

Whilst I have been working on the next 20 boats I gave myself a break to pour a couple more hull forms; and to grind and polish them. 

This post is simple about the beauty of the metal and shape. First photo below is of the forms trimmed in the guillotine and ready for a grind and polish.

The polished forms will be drilled and mounted on timber and maybe cement to create Balance pieces that will wend their way to Scotland.

Back to basics - patinated leaves

 

On my list of product for the markets in Scotland are smallish (about 15cm long) patinated copper leaves. Today I finished 11 as you can see from the photos above. Poor light in the workshop resulted in a bluish tone.

The process started earlier in the week as it included painting the cleaned and polished leaves with patina solution - weak acid solution - which needed to react and dry.

It occurred to me that the hammering of the boats and leaves are different. Below are a few photos of the cut forms and the hammer marks on each - boats are hammered along the fold; leaves are hammered along the open edge.

Anyway - a few other process photos follow including the patination process and outcome.

The leaves were given a coat of flat clear varnish to fix the patina. The leaves were then given a bit of grind to create some raw copper highlights.So these leaves are now packed and ready to head to Scotland later this year.

Light, bright and white.

 

The mornings are quite dark when we get up for exercise; but after a while we were rewarded with a pale pink sky - above and below.

I thought that there would not be many fragments of beauty to see but I was wrong - colours to be seen

And vivid whites.

Small and delicate orchids in G's orchid house.

Fiona has brought some of the outdoor colour into our home as you can see from the photo below.

The gifts of nature lift the spirit.

Designing and testing a rolling ocean

 

Part of my installation of 100 small fishing boats will include a rolling wave like infrastructure about 1m wide and 2.8m long.  The above photo shows what will be the design to guide the bending of mesh into the wave form/s. You can see I had a few attempts before coming up with a reasonable design. I will anchor the mesh with stone; and might have to create a few props to keep it stable where it is off the bench top.

Over the weekend I completed another 20 boats now bringing the total to 60 - very happy to be past halfway. 

I wanted to test forming the wave form out of mesh. I was able to buy a 6m length of 25mm square mesh. The gauge of the wire was 1.2mm a bit lighter that the 1.5-2mm mesh I will use in Scotland. I laid the mesh out on 2.8m section of a bench in the workshop; and roughly created a wave form.

In the actual installation I want to create the sense of boats sailing up the back of the wave, cresting the wave, poised on the lip of the wave and then crashing into the trough. I attached 15 boats to the mesh - I think the following photos suggest that I can achieve what I'm trying to achieve.

The final form of the wave form will wait until Scotland. In the mean time onwards with making the 40 plus other boats.