Organizing the Workshop

After many many months, the hydraulic press is in it's final home and bolted down. Now it looks like a very tall person with a white shirt on; the white shirt is the fancy dust cover. Yes, I'll need a foot stool to place items on the press; luckily there's one out there because the cabinets are also too tall for me to reach past the first shelf!


Without the cover, the hydraulic press looks like this (in it's old location taking up workbench space.)

The vacuum caster is also in it's permanent location. All that's needed is a mirror so I can see the oil level while it's running.

Vacuum Caster Modifications

The used vacuum caster I purchased started leaking oil after I turned it on the first time. So before turning it on again a revamp was required. The newer models are now built for servicability and for easy access to the oil input port. My older model required some modifications in order to make adding oil easier.

A trip to the hardware store seemed in order, and these are the parts from the plumbing and irrigation aisles that we thought would work.

Here are the parts installed, and below is a closeup of the modification to the oil input port.

Once the mods were made and oil was added, we ran the pump. If the pressure is low enough, water will turn to ice.

The pressure reached the max for this unit, and the water was very cold. Need a more powerful pump to make ice!

Sharing Textures

The local metal clay guild held a texture swap last weekend. Attendees brought different found, created, or purchased objects to share. The offerings ranged from fabric to carved polymer clay molds to a piece of cauliflower to a piece of worm eaten wood from an apple tree in someone's yard. Those worms are quite the artists.



Regular Sculpey (TM) was given to paid members, and after everyone had snacked, the polymer clay prep and molding began. One of the chapter officers brought four pasta machines for everyone to use. Some people, I was one of them, brought two part RTV molding compound.

While my work will still use only the molds I take when I travel, and/or my interpretation of my travels, I now have many molds to share with students when I teach.

More Volts & Amps

When it was time for more electrolytic etching I decided to try the trickle charger as the source. Well . . . whoever named it was accurate: trickle means trickle. Even the C batteries caused more bubbles in the saltwater when they were hooked up. My friend Pat had a great idea to check the local electronics store for a battery that would suit our need (desire) for speed. Plan B meant a perusal of the battery aisle. I now know why UPS units for computers are so heavy - they have all these dense batteries inside of them.

A guy in the test/measurement department obliged us and broke out some new leads to test whether the chosen UPS battery had a charge. Yes, it did. And, it works very nicely. The good news is that when I drain the battery, I can hook it up to the trickle charger and recharge it. So, the trickle charger will be used indirectly after all.



Pat had a great idea to hide the leads behind a piece of wood to reduce the salty moisture that could deposit on them. The 18 gauge copper wire holding the cathode copper kept being etched away and dropping the etched copper piece into the solution.



After doubling the copper wire, in order to obtain double the time we had before the copper fell into in the bath, I remembered that I'd covered the leads with electrical tape before.



The yellow duct tape masked off the ends and back of one of these bracelet-to-be copper pieces. I kept taping and covered the leads, giving the copper all the time in the solution that I wanted. After three etches, the solution slowed down a bit, which was perfect because the bracelet-to-be pieces will be forged so they need to keep a decent amount of thickness to them.



On the above piece I covered the entire back and edges with rubber cement, which held up well in the saltwater solution.

I was in a rubber cement mood, so all of these textures were the result of applying rubber cement and then scraping it off with a toothpick.

What was in the Boxes on the Pallet?

This!

Well, the table. The rolling mill was moved off the garage workbench to it's new home. Now it can be bolted down.

The vacuum caster will join it when we can figure out why it leaked after we tested it out (it's a used Rey-Master Cast 5804. If you have a manual for that model, or for the very close Vigor 5803, I'd be happy to see it!) 

The inspirational map (islands of the Pacific) was bumped out of another room to make room for a world map; it's now in a very good spot.

Hydraulic Press Demo

At last weekends Metal Arts Association of Silicon Valley meeting we watched a demonstration of the Hydraulic Press by local artist and educator Edith Sommer.

Here are some of her aluminum dies and resulting copper forms, along with some of her other tricks such as gasket rubber to make the shape deeper and wire taped to cardboard for embossing.

Edith Sommer demonstrating the hydraulic press

Going Vertical

Thanks to Richard Hart. His Aug 2007 Ganoksin post for the idea to create a custom flex shaft hanging stand with hardware store parts has come to life. We spent some time in the plumbing aisle at the hardware store (believe it or not - only 1 trip!) and made Richard's idea come to life in our garage today.

I was sooooo tired of the old stand banging the flex shaft into the wall, that I traded it with a friend last month for a stationary stand for the "real" workbench. That left a void in the 'dirty' working area of the garage, and the new industrial looking hanging system fits in well.

With 3 preset adjustable heights and 3 spots to hang the flex shaft on the cross member, I'm all set. The shelf bracket is already coming in handy as a place to hang the rubber fish pen. :-) Now I'll be able to find my pen, the cut-anything-rough cutters, as well as the copper tongs for the nearby pickle.