Halfway!

Today marks the halfway point on my sojourn to San Francisco.

While it's been good I have to admit that now it is getting wearing. There are a number of tasks in the shop that just need doing. Some of the work is repetitive and laborious. It feels like work!

Prime amongst these tasks is the bark. There is always bark to make.
We have hit a bit of a design issue that affects adding the bark to the sub-frame. The design calls for a "methanol fountain" to cascade down from the upper levels over some tree fungus and into a pool at the base of the stump. Except that the pool hasn't been made yet. Since we don't know how this pool will interact with the edge of the bark we can't really finish the layer properly. In the meantime there are a number of struts that weren't put in the original subframe so I started adding some extra struts to help span the large gaps that are currently there.

This involves cutting the rod, shaping it in a roller and trimming the edges so it can be fit into place.

Cutting strut to length

Rolling a gentle curve into the strut

Gently curved strut

Strut welded into place

 Meanwhile, Anthony had been working on a prototype for the tree fungus. He hand formed it with hammers and a tree stump. which created a very fungus shaped piece. It still had a few bumps in it so JDV thought he'd try to smooth them out with the English Wheel but it didn't really work.

JDV operating the English Wheel

 As evening approached the weekly meeting was held and I joined the plumbers in yet more tests of the pilot, poofer and hood configuration.
This year they are committed to using venturi's. These allow you to vary the amount of oxygen in the gas mixture and can produce a blue flame. They've already spent a packet on them from a BBQ retailer!

Venturi

 The main thing we needed to do was cut down the pipe feeding the pilot light. We cut the pipe in the band saw and then re-threaded it.

Dan uses a pipe threader on the tube

Then we set up all the equipment again and gave it another try. To my mind, there didn't seem to be much difference in the way the pilot operated but this week everyone was happy. They were more intent on seeing how the poofer operated at different angles.

Poof!