Layer A is done!

After a month of constant cutting, rolling, hammering and welding the bottom layer of Big Stumpy is finally covered in bark! That's a pretty big milestone...but it also begs the question, exactly how are they going to complete the bark on the other two layers with only three weeks to go before shipping?

Base of Big Stumpy covered in bark

 In other news- it was Margret's birthday so the crew let of some fireworks just for the hell of it! The FLG is a pretty tight community and very busy at this time of year. People were joking that even if she'd gone out to dinner or something all her friends would have been at the shop anyway. Which is kind of true!

Fireworks for Margret's birthday

Rosa Anna is in charge of designing the fire effects for Big Stumpy. There's going to be a ring of fire around the top of the stump. This is based around a copper tube with holes punctured in it. Traditionally it is covered in a binding of stainless steel wool (not plain steel wool as this would burn!) but Rosa Anna didn't really know why, it was just something they've always done (and she's been doing this for 8 years). So she tested a range of variations: tube with holes, tube with holes and steel wool, tube with slots, tube with slots and steel wool.
Turns out the steel wool acts as a diffuser, capturing the gas and preventing it from blowing out. The slots, however, gave a better shaped flame than the holes.

Testing various combinations for the fire effects on top of Big Stumpy

I've also been working on the Light Mushrooms with Anthony. These mushroom units are affectionately referred to as Sue and Clyde after two of the ghosts in the PacMan video game. They are constructed by CNC plasma cut sheeting that is fitted together with a tab and slot construction and welded into place.

The CNC (Computer Numeric Control) plasma cutter is a machine wedged in the back corner of the workshop. It consists of a table of slats onto which sheets of metal can be laid and a moving arm mounted on two tracks that move left to right and a plasma cutting head that moves forward and backward allowing full control of movement in the X-Y plane. A blueprint is loaded into the computer attached to the CNC plasma cutter and the machine cuts the shapes out from the sheet metal. This produces cleaner cuts than can be achieved by hand, quicker and more efficiently.

The CNC plasma cutter

Once the pieces are cut they are slotted together and welded in place to form a mushroom segment.

Mushroom segment made of tab and slot sheets being welded into place

When all the segments are assembled together they form a mushroom.
This is the mushroom that will have the LED lights I was playing with the other day.

Light Mushroom (Sue)

Pretty neat, huh?