The ADD Continues--Marbles, a Helmet, and a Workbench

When not stacking wood and spinning and knitting, I've been hanging out in my cottage (aka The Wicca House, sometimes The Studio [if I'm feeling pretentious], sometimes the Workshop).   I love kinetic sculptures--those structures where marbles (or, in bigger ones, billiard balls) go running around.  Once, on a Boston visit, I almost missed my flight because I was so fascinated watching the large one in the lobby.

So I got some copper wire and made a small one.  There will be a bigger on in the future, something less basic.  This was my learning one.  The main thing I learned was that the copper wire I got was way to heavy to bend easily (but it was the most accessible).  I also needed a lot of practice soldering.  But I had a lot of fun figuring out the slopes and the banking and I like the final product.

 

Then I made a dive helmet, because who doesn't need one?  Actually, this is for my brother who has some idea about making a Captain Nemo outfit and wants to put in some smoke effects.  (the big question is how long will it take me to find a box big enough and actually go to the post office with this?)

 

 

I'm ridiculously pleased with this, because you have to actually pick it up and look at it to figure out that it's made from . . . . floor mats.  Those rubber mats you put on the floors to ease fatigue.   It did take awhile--I had a pattern, but there were 30-some pieces to cut out and glue together.  The paint job alone took several hours. 

 

 I'd work for awhile, then take a breather and clean up Chez Wicca for a bit.  So not only did I end up with a helmet, but all the drawers and shelves got tidied up.  At least in the front room.  And the sewing room got done not too long ago.  This leaves the back room (where I do wet stuff like dyeing and felting and papermaking) which had gotten out of hand.   I decided that I needed a new workbench.

 

Here's the before picture--the work area was an old kitchen cabinet that came with the cottage (and we've been here 27 years), and I also had an old butcher's rack for supplies.  The butcher's rack was OK, but too big for the area, so to come in the back door you had to sort of sidle sideways.

 

 

So all of that stuff had to come off--and it couldn't go in the front room because I needed my space in there to build the new workbench so the poor sewing room got the brunt of it. (note:  I thought about *buying* a workbench, but they seem to come in two sizes--48" x 24" or 72" x 30"--what I needed was 60" x 24" and that was not to be found.  Besides, buying something isn't as satisfying as building it). (and not saying that the old cabinet was in bad shape, but it sort of fell apart when we dumped it outside, and then dissolved to a pile of sodden sawdust in the rain)   I found a good set of plans and rewrote them for the size I needed.  Bob took me to go buy lumber and I was off.  And immediately hit a bump in the road.

 

The bench is built of lumber, 2x4x8.  Ostensibly, this means that the wood is 2 inches by 4 inches by 8 feet long.  Now, I know that the real measurement is not 2 x 4 inches but more like 1.5 by 3.5 inches.  What I didn't realize was the in the lumber world, 8 feet means 82.5 inches instead of 86 inches.   Hmmmm.  I had written my new plans to be as economical as possible so I had to do a quick rewrite to re-figure out how to cut everything.  After that it went quite well.

 

 

 

 

 It's got a deep lower shelf and an upper shelf and it actually holds all the stuff I took out (which did get culled and sorted).  I'm particularly pleased with these small wire baskets I put on the side which holds a lot of the bits and pieces with a physical "cost" to the room of only 5 inches.

And I'm *really* pleased that unlike some of my projects which sort of become Bob's projects, this was about 90% mine.  Bob was gracious enough to help with cutting the shelves and installing the upper shelf, both of which would have been awkward for one person.

Then as soon as I got everything cleaned up from that a friend who saw my dive helmet wanted to come over and get help started some foam armor?  Who am I to say no to a playdate?

 

Curious to see how this turns out.

Now--whatever shall I do next?  (Other than prepare for that honkin' big Hurricane Irma that's breathing down our necks)