internship

6.24: Sherri and I finally finished grinding those bars! It takes a lot longer to finish those then you would think because the top and bottom have to look really good and the sides also have to be finished. Since Sherri and I are kind of perfectionists when it comes to some things, we re-did the bars several times. If you get one scratch or the lines are very straight then you have to grind the whole thing again.
[left: BAC clock. The bars on the top and bottom are the ones we had to grind the last couple days]

We also sanded the ends of some of the rods we cut the other day. The ones that had been sanded and cleaned could then be bent. Julie gave us an intro to the hydraulic press. They have made most of their own jigs too. We got to bend a few of the rods too.

Meet Dave!
Toward the end of the day we got a little welding intro as well. Dave comes in a few times a week to weld for the Girardinis. He's another talented artist who works with steel. I heard about him at the ACC when i was working with Biba, i thought it was cool to hear about an artist who lived in the same small town as me! His work is sweet and I think it's a little more my style than the Girardinis. I tend to work more complex and I have a hard time staying simple. Their style is very zen and calming which is nothing like me (remember my blood diamond project). So anyway, Dave showed us how to tack weld with a TIG welder. It was so sweet. I actually was scared of it and didn't use enough force. I was told to go for it more! I did get a little better with it. Dave was a great teacher.

6.25: We learned how to use another wire brush grinder for wall scones/vases but it's a lot bigger and it's mounted to a work bench. It was so hard to do! The edges kept catching and it throw you around. It was so scary at first! Sherri and I kept switching from that and sanding/grinding pendulums for the asia wall clocks. Sherri did more of the wire brushing because she was a little more comfortable with it than me. Thanks Sherri! I liked doing the pendulums for some reason. They were fun for me.

[left: luma bloom vase]

6.27: Julie and Ken have a lot of familiar machines and one was the tumbler. We unloaded and loaded it with pieces for the floral vase stand. Then, Dave welded the table top clocks so we had a lot of finishing to do! We also got to weld a little bit more. Sherri and i actually stayed over our normal time to do some extra welding. welding helmets with pink flames would be so awesome to have.