Progress on "Water" Benches for Schaumburg Sculpture Park

When I last posted, I showed the sides being cut on this piece.  Here, it shows that I've started forming the ends of the top curve.

I'm using a 10" diamond blade on a grinder to make all these cuts.

It's taking shape...

Meanwhile, the other piece gets a couple inches shaved off the sides with the 10" saw.  I'm able to get these flat surfaces because the diamond blades all have flush-mounted hubs.

The curve is drawn onto the preform...

...and the rough removal begins.

It was so labor-intensive to get the top curves right.  I thought that it would speed up the process if I made this custom tool.  The holes were drilled to match the lines on the existing piece and made in the exact diameter for the china marker.

The steel washer on the top glides in the saw cut so that I get precise lines.

This is the current status (more or less).  I've spent some time with it this weekend making sure where I want the bubbles.

I've made some minor changes as I've lived with it and looked at it freshly for a couple days.  Once I cut into it, I'm committed.  So, I want to be sure...

When I made the tool with the 6 holes, it really came home to me about how I had subconsciously used 6 rows of lines like guitar tablature. I've spent years learning songs from YouTube with tablature for finger-style guitar - must have gotten into my head.  So, I transcribed the bubble patterns from the functional sculptures into my tablature book. 

Then, I filled in values for the fret numbers.  So, these are the "tabs" for the songs that are in the 6 sides of the sculpture.  It's rather.. meandering... kind of like water...  I tried to record it and hoped to upload it as a video.  But, my efforts where substandard (and I don't have time to focus on this now).  Maybe someone who is a better musician than me would like to take a try and see if their version is any better.  They could fill in the numbers differently or even have alternate tuning - the possibilities are endless.  A loop effect or multi-tracking recording is needed, a microphone would be nice, too - things that I don't have....(yet)

This was an unexpected direction, but you can bet, I'm going to pursue this in future projects.

 

Work Begins on "Water" Benches for Schaumburg Sculpture Park

These are the 2 quarry blocks.  I have drawn the designs onto the sides of the blocks.

Then it was time to get out "The Secret Weapon"!  

This is the diamond tipped chainsaw run by a hydraulic power unit.

The chainsaw is 18" long and the stones are 24" thick.  I can cut the ends all the way through.  But, I have to use wedges to split the stone that the saw couldn't reach.

Then, I used a pry bar to pull the pieces away from each other.  The whole piece was 10,000 lbs. so we're dealing with only half the weight already.

This picture shows how I start on corners to keep the saw cutting straight. The weight of the hoses can pull the saw sideways and lead to crooked cuts.  They're hard to correct if it starts going in the wrong direction.  The trick is to start it right and keep it right (if that makes sense...)

Voila! An 1,800 lb. end is cut off.  This will become a large sculpture one day.

A 21,000 lb. quarry block was cut in half at the quarry.  Then, the 2 halves became 7 pieces.  I also finished what will become the bottom surfaces of the 2 bench preforms while they were laying on their sides.

Next, I called in a crane.  Dereck grabbed the first preformed bench block.  They are about 4,000 lb. each at this point.

We flipped it upright after moving it to the shady side of the studio.

We reached out and got the 2nd piece...

...and flipped it upright as well.

Both preforms are now sitting next to the finished piece, ready for carving.  In this picture, I've already started taking stone off one side to match the existing sculpture.  They are actually much further along, but I'm behind on posting pictures.   It's just about impossible to take pictures without one of the studio cats getting in there.  They scatter when I turn on the grinders... but they're back by dinner, you can be sure...

We had a visitor one day - Mike Ferguson from French Lick, IN rode his Harley to check out our work.  Here's his bike parked next to mine.