Girardini Design

6.30: Today we cleaned A LOT of steel rods!! It takes forever to clean them with alcohol and a scotch brite pad. It actually hurts your arm after awhile! All the work we do at our internship is really hard on the body. We can only do a few hours of work a day because it's such hard physical work. My back, arms, and neck have not stopped hurting all summer. I feel like such a wimp but I seriously can only work for the most 4 hours. It's pathetic i know but we aren't used to it. Julie and Ken are champs.

We also learned how to sand rings a different way. Sometimes Julie and Ken each have their own certain ways of doing things and we just have to figure out what we are more comfortable with. Julie is more of the finisher while Ken does a lot of patina stuff.

[right: hundreds of freshly cut, uncleaned rods]

Packing and shipping is another step that I tend to forget. It's so important to package your work up properly or it will arrive to the customers damaged and not it's best. We learned how to bubble wrap some of the pieces and how the clocks include a pack of clock arms, a pendulum, and batteries.

[left:packaging room/storage area]

7.2: Today Julie and Ken were gone to do an installation so luckily Dave was there so we could still come in. We couldn't really use any machines so we finished packing up anything we could. I like how everything is organized and things are kept stocked up incase they get a large order. It's so important to be organized and keep things on record!

7.9: We ground cut parts with the large grinder and then the small. The large grinder is used to get the main scratches and cut marks out then the small is to leave a nice uniform finish.

I forget the date but one day when Sherri had to work, I got to use the plasma cutter! It was so awesome. It's like a laser gun that you free had cut with. I practiced cutting shapes freehand like hearts and curves but I used a jig for the parts so they'd all be the same. I was so nervous i'd mess up that I made Dave show me a couple times. The trick was to move with your whole body and bend your legs instead of just pulling your arms. You are more steady if you turn your entire body. It was such a cool experience. There were sparks everywhere!

[below: Sherri and Julie]