I’ve been able to make some progress on this project since my zipline related mishap. I’m only able to do a little at a time before I need to crash out on the couch with an ice pack, but it gives me something to look forward to and I don’t feel completely useless.
What a great way to start off the new year!
Yup, Thats my ankle. At least I have more time for craft projects now…
Unfortunately I haven’t had a lot of free time to work on projects outside of work lately so I haven’t had much to post about. I have made some progress with the guitar I’m building. I picked up a few pieces of Engleman spruce to use as a top. They actually are intended for use as a mandolin soundboard, but the dimensions were right for my project and they were cheap.
They came in a book-matched set. Nothing exotic, just plain old spruce with out much flame. Still I love the look of natural wood. I’m thinking about using a transparent finish on the top. First things first though.
Here’s the entire Mighty B! comic that I did for nick mag:
Click the link below for the rest of the pages
A few months a go I finished an 8-page Mighty B comic for the December issue of Nickmag. It was written by Jessica Gao, penciled and inked by me, and the paint was done by William Wray.
I have been playing around with some wrapped wire forms. If any of these look like some of Lydia’s work, that’s because she taught me the technique. Her pieces remind me of flowers, seed pods, and other organic shapes. Mine are based on sea creatures, mostly jellyfish and squid. (sea creatures along with wings seem to keep popping up in my work, im not sure why). I have sold a couple of necklaces and people seem to really respond to these so I think I will continue making them. Some of them will be for sale in our online store whenever I get it working. Here is a sample:
I made this first one for Lydia. The inside is silver which has been cast in a mold carved from a Cuttle fish bone. The bell is wrapped silver wire.
Lydia and I finally got a decent camera! High quality photos and videos coming soon!
More progress on the ship piece. The waves move now! I need to tone the motion down a bit, but it pretty much there. Ive added a spring which keeps the chain under tension. This seems to work much better then the spring links I had previously been building in to the chain. Ill move on to building the boat next. I think I’m going to build a new ship rather then re-use the old one. My original solders are just too messy.
(Its a large-ish video so it might take a little while to load.)
Here are a couple of my current projects:
Sea Ghost
David asked me about this piece a while back so here’s an update. One of my early mechanical pieces was a of a ship sailing above a turbulent sea. I had first set out to see if I could create a believable wave motion. After a few different tries I found something I liked. The design allowed me to add the secondary action of a boat on the surface of the waves. The finished piece was pretty cool but unfortunately this was before I learned to solder properly and the copper tubing I used was not quite rigid enough. After a series of breakdowns and some rough handling during a move the piece collapsed. I don’t think I ever got a photo or video of it intact. Well, I’m currently rebuilding it with brass structural pieces instead of copper and a few design changes. Currently its about thirty percent done.
The waves have been retained from the original but everything else is new.
I first started thinking about a machine which raised and flexed a mechanical set of wings while watching a really great documentary called The Life of Birds.
This first piece Flying Machine No.1 is more of a proof of concept prototype than a finished piece. At the time I was still learning to solder as the sloppy joins show. The piece is made of copper wire and tubing and stands about 6 inched tall. Sorry about the poor quality, my digital camera isn’t the best…
