Sunday at the FLG

So today is Sunday.

Get up and head down to the Boxshop for a day of fabrication.

Weekends are one of the busiest times for the FLG and this weekend was no exception. There were several groups of people clustered around performing various tasks.

The structure I had cut parts for the other day was being tacked into position when I arrived.

Uprights tacked into place for the third story

 This continued for the remainder of the day with the addition of the cross-pieces.

Tacking cross-pieces to the frame

But my job today was to mount the bark onto the substructure. While this may have been envisioned as a simple system it turns out it's probably not as quick or easy as was thought. Each strip of bark (after being cut, rolled and hammered) is mounted on the sub-structure frame by welding. Approximately 4 points of contact are needed which is not always easy because the bark strips are deformed and sit at odd angles and the substructure is a sweeping form made of compound curves. This means that each piece needs to be bashed and hammered into shape until it will sit into the spot you want to place it. It's also a two person job as it's too difficult to clamp the bark strips to the frame. You need someone to hold them in place while the other welds. I was working with Babs who showed me the ropes.
So we bashed and placed and welded for 8 hours and eventually covered one section of the stump with bark.

About 3 hours of bark cladding

8 hours later and the panel is covered