Tag: Object

Spatula in Action

Sarah and Jen sent us photos of their wedding present! And as a bonus, there’s some delicious quiche as well. As I said before, if you’re ever invited to eat dinner at their house, go. Don’t trust me. Trust the photos.

Silver dollar pancakes…

Makin’ bacon.

Quiche!

Or maybe it’s a frittata. I’m not sure of the difference.

Whatever it is, it looks delicious. Sarah let us know that they’ve had great luck cooking with the spatula, and that they like that the handle stays cool even when using it in hot dishes.

Nom.

Thank you!

Author name:
Sara
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1 Comment

Chris’ Turntable

Object #5
Interview Subject: Chris
Object in Question: Sculpture Turntable

We return, and well worth the wait, we hope. Zac took the notes and concepts of our interview with Chris and came up with something completely unique, portable, and inventive. Rather than creating (and shipping) a solid square of 12″ x 12″ steel, why not simply create wheels that easily fit underneath the sculpture base, support the full weight of the creation and roll naturally and freely in a circle?

Zac’s photographs and the finished project below…We’ll try to get some action shots soon enough so that everyone can see how the lady takes to her new wheels.

The Finished Product

When the idea of a turntable was first proposed, I immediately leapt to a set of big plates with some kind of bearings between them – a lazy susan of sorts, big enough to support a few hundred pounds of beautiful welded steel lady.  This idea lasted about until I priced shipping for two 12″ steel rounds and associated hardware.  What we ended up with was a pared-down turntable with some interesting details, that will require some assembly upon arrival, but packs into a tiny box.

The First Step - Wheel Hub Blanks

For the centers of the supporting wheels, I decided to go with 1/4″ thick cold-rolled steel left over from the railings – these cut squares were then drilled through the middle…

Turning The Blanks

The square blanks were then tapped onto a very slightly tapered mandrel until they locked in place, and the outside edges were turned round & concentric to the central holes.

Wheel Rims, Centers, & Bolts

The wheel rims were made from offcuts of steel pipe – you guessed it, left over from the railings.  The centers were sections of cold-rolled rod, also from the railings.  The shoulder screws came courtesy of a well-stocked hardware drawer.  Remind me to tell you about hardware drawers sometime.

Hubs Turned To Size, But Visually Boring

The hub sections are drilled and turned, they fit the inside of the pipe rims and the outside of the central hubs, but are still kinda boring to look at…

Drilling The Hubs

To add some visual interest, I drilled an evenly spaced ring of holes through the hubs.  Thankfully, we had a rotary table, which makes laying out the holes much easier.

Detail of Drilling

Wheels Welded Together

No process photos ’cause welding takes 3 hands anyway.

The Complete Package, Ready To Assemble

The Central Spider, With Pivot Point

You can tap the point in the pivot into the shelf to keep the turntable from wandering as it spins.

Turntable Assembled, 10" Diameter Circle

Proof Of Concept - Turning A Platter

And to finish us off, a gratuitous wheel!

Chris, thank you again for the fascinating interview and for sharing this little slice of your home with us.

Tomorrow, Clockstone Studios brings a new interview to the doorstep, in the form of a professional New York stage manager turned world traveler and back again.

Author name:
Sara
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Mz Dorothy Darker’s Box

Object #4
Interview Subject: Dorothy Darker
Object in Question: Small, handy, purse-like box

Well, Clockstone readers, this post will be a brief one, I confess, because I’ve just spent sixteen hours at a Renaissance festival and am the color of a boiled lobster.

But it’s all right, because the pictures speak for themselves. Dorothy’s box turned out to be a unexpectedly complicated project, but one that we think looks beautiful, and which we hope she will love.

Without further ado from my sunburnt self, here’s Zac:

So the project brief was for a steampunk bento box, or something along those lines; a small box that’d fit a cell phone, keys, and other essentials.  Ms Darker suggested loops in the corners of the box that one could tie keys or a phone lanyard to, with perhaps external loops as well for a carrying strap. This evolved into the little slotted sections of tube that can be seen below – more on that later.  The aesthetic of the box ended up somewhere between steampunk & atomic age.  The material was salvaged from stainless steel pipette containers I’d found a couple years ago on the recycle shelf of my university’s chemistry lab.

The bench at the start of the project, container in the foreground:

A little work with a cutoff wheel gave me usable sections:

And some careful work with an air grinder and a tiny burr gave me nice slotted tube sections, perfect for joining corners and providing a place to tie keys and phones to:

With the two angles welded together, all that’s left is to add sides, corners, hinges, a latch… purses are complicated!

Here’s the bar left in the corner, ready to tie things down:

And the lid hinged up, ready to add sides and all the hardware:

Final assembly:

Welding the top together:

And I got impatient during the last stages of assembly and skipped the picture-taking.  Here’s the finished purse (Well, almost finished.  Still needs a latch.  How many parts can one purse have!?)

And done (finally!):

And open:

Remember that nice clean bench we started with?  Somehow, this tends to happen:

Thanks for joining us, Dorothy! And thank you for the lilies; they’ve bloomed and are gorgeous. We hope your purse serves you well for many years to come.

Next week we’re going to talk to a friend with a sculpture problem. Until then, thanks for reading!

Author name:
Sara
Discussion:
1 Comment

Sarah & Jen’s Spatula

Object #3
Interview Subject: Sarah & Jen
Object in Question: Spatula

This morning Zac and I had the great pleasure to see Sarah and Jen married. The ceremony was in a gazebo in a park a few blocks from their house; during their vows, the skies opened up and it began to rain in a circle around all of us. Afterwards, we walked to a local restaurant and ate and drank the afternoon away.

Before eating, we gave Sarah and Jen their object: a handmade spatula, flexible and curved to fit the hand. Here’s Zac’s overview of the making process:

So, what to make for a couple that loves to cook?  There’s a whole world of possible kitchen accessories, appliances, and tools, but what can be made in under 8 hours, with little tooling or materials cost?

Hand tools seemed to be the answer, something simple but elegant and effective for cooking or serving.  Coincidentally, Cooks’ Illustrated had just done a special on that most basic of cooking tools, the spatula.  They concluded that this:

the Wusthof Gourmet Turner Fish Spatula was the “best” spatula. Catchy name, right? But it’s got a thin, flexible blade that’s sturdy enough to flip heavy items, and an angled edge that’s handy for scraping pans and getting into the corners of pots.

So in designing a spatula for Jen & Sarah, I based the shape on this and tried to figure out how to make it relatively quickly and easily.  The numerous slender slots were out, as was the riveted resin handle.  The blade material, stainless spring steel, is readily available and can be worked with most metalworking tools – the challenge was making a dime-thin piece of steel feel comfortable in the hand with no added handle.  In working out a design, it’s always easier to use paper or cardboard to start with – in this case green oaktag from an old file folder.  The designs evolved from top to bottom – a 2.5″ wide strip of spring steel with an angled scraping edge and a 90° twist in the handle to give a rounded gripping surface.

Unfortunately spring steel is, well, springy.  It’s the stuff watch springs are made of, as hard as an average knife blade, with a definite dislike for bending.  It comes in 5′ long strips, coiled and tied, with a large warning tag.  Cutting those bands sent the strip dancing merrily across the shop floor as it straightened out in a matter of seconds.  How, then, to bend it?

Enter a recent Craigslist find – a kick press from the boonies.  Originally set up to punch oblong holes in thick plastic, it’s rated for 5 tons (a little optimistically, I think) and has a nice tall space for tooling.

Those 5 tons of pressure, exerted over a fairly small area, can quite easily bend spring steel given the proper tooling.  This might not be quite the proper tooling, but it could be made quickly with what I had on hand – some small channel & a few pieces of scrap steel.

And with a few measured kicks, it can make fairly nice bends in the springiest steel.

So, tooling taken care of, now to cut out the blank.

And with a little grinding & punching, it’s looking less like a piece of debris & more like a kitchen utensil.

And with a few kicks of the press and some cutting and grinding – cameras and steel dust don’t get along, so unfortunately no pictures – it’s looking like a real spatula.

And it even looks at home in a pan!  Hopefully Jen & Tyler will like it!  They’ve promised to send pictures of it in use – we can’t wait to see them.

Author name:
Sara
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5 Comments

Jack’s Rack

Object #2
Interview Subject: Jack Stratton
Object in Question: Tie Rack

Zac’s photos of this project make it look so gorgeous that when I opened the email with these photos I actually clapped. Here’s his maker’s interview:

In designing Jack’s rack, I was drawn to two comments he made in the interview – about connecting with something mechanical/physical, and about the tools of printing past:

“Maybe just that most of the tools I find useful in life are electronic and/or virtual and it would be nice to connect with something mechanical/physical…

“As well when I was learning design I was fascinated and in love with lead type, rulers, printing presses, etc. I am still drawn to the tools of printing past.”

Inspired by his drawing – and having independently arrived at the same 72 linear inches of tie space that he’d specified there (yes folks, that’s six feet of ties) – I set out to hang four 18″ rods at an angle from the wall.  The rack as drawn was hinged to the wall so ties could be hung and arranged more easily, but as the single curved wire still wouldn’t have made for easy access, I’ve replaced it with a single upright and four horizontal crossbars.  Considering the fact that Jack’s a graphic designer, the crossbars slide in the uprights and lock with a setscrew so he can arrange them in any way he pleases (though, as in all things, some modicum of balance is advisable).  As New York apartments are not known for being spacious, it made sense to allow for the rack to fold down flat to the wall, so the ties could become the “design element” he had in mind while staying physically unobtrusive.  (I’m curious if he’ll do this, actually – it runs the risk of leaving creases in the ties, but it’d be really cool.)  In order for the rack to stand away from the wall, there had to be a prop of some kind, which had to fold or move somehow to let it sit flat.  This led to the development of the neat little mechanism you’ll see below – a nicely ergonomic, decidedly physical detail that harkens back to the era of printing presses and connection with mechanical tools.

Most of the parts laid out, ready to test-fit.  Sadly, I managed to leave my camera at home yesterday, so there aren’t any pictures of the earlier steps – most of it was drilling the bar and shaping the brackets and wall prop:



All the parts assembled, with the crossbars in one possible arrangement:

Here’s most of the shaping that went into the rack – the brackets on the left were ground from scrap angle iron, the upright was hexagonal steel scrap creatively milled, drilled, and filed, and the prop’s a section of salvaged bus bar sawn to shape.

The key linkage that lifts the prop is simple in theory – it just passes through the upright, drops down to lock the rack when it’s pulled away from the wall, and lifts when you press the key on the end.  Getting that to work in steel and copper takes a couple tries with cardboard first.  The real pivot pin is at the bottom, along with the broken Dremel bit I was using for a test pivot.

The key assembled, marked for final shaping:

The hinge, assembled but not yet welded:

All the parts, some of the tools, and a giant box o’ setscrews.  Plus a cheapie Ikea allen wrench I found to send along to Jack to really make this a kit:

The finished key, shaped and polished, with a roll pin pivot.

The finished rack, standing up from the table, with the crossbars in another possible orientation.

Finished & temporarily hung up with pushpins.  Here the prop’s down and the key is raised – to fold the rack to the wall, just press down on the key and lower the rack.

Laying flat against the wall, with the crossbars in one possible arrangement:

Lift the rack up to thirty degrees from the wall, the prop drops down, and the rack locks up.

It can also be lifted through 90° to let ties hang down freely for selecting or rearranging.  You can see the setscrews on the back of the upright.

Closeup of the wall plate/hinge:

Side view of the wall prop (with a little bit of plastic at the end so it doesn’t mark up the wall):

Close-up of the handle and the key/prop lever:

Thanks for interviewing with us, Jack! The tie rack was an opportunity for us to see another potential side of The 500 Hammers project…8 hours (the maximum time that Clockstone Studios will commit to one of our free objects) can make a relatively simple object, but it can also generate things that are very elaborate and unique. A tie rack (easily re-creatable, if you’re interested) will sell for $140 through our typical ordering process.

We’ve had a lot of interest in the project so far, and really appreciate all of the linking and good comments!

And speaking of comments…we’ve got an interview coming tomorrow with two of my favorite people in the world, but after that our 4th interview slot is up for grabs. Do you want it? Email us!

Author name:
Sara
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1 Comment

Hair Spirals in Action!

Nina’s hair is a much better example of how hair spirals can rock with curls…She took photos in the park:

Then over the weekend she came over and we did another snapshot:

Pictures of Jack’s rack are coming tonight! Here’s a sneak preview:

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Sara
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Nina’s Hair Spirals

Object #1
Interview Subject: Nina Lourie
Object in Question: Hair Spirals

This Thursday Zac sent Nina’s hair spirals along to her in New York! Here’s a snapshot of the process he went through and the finished product; a maker’s interview, if you will:

Hair spirals – surprisingly difficult to describe, surprisingly simple when seen.  They’re like giant, loosely wound conical springs:

Winding springs is easy – just wrap wire around the right size rod.  If you taper that rod, you can wind conical springs – to a point.  Once the taper gets too steep or the spring too loosely wound, it’ll slip right off the mandrel, just like trying to tie a rope around the top of a pyramid.

The solution is to make a mandrel with steps that keep the wire in place.  This one was made out of a chunk of 4×4 pine too short to do anything else with.

Turning the cone on the lathe was easy, but marking and cutting the steps took many tries with a Sharpie and a steady hand with a die grinder & round burr.


I had some annealed stainless wire in the scrap drawer which was soft enough to wind around the mandrel by hand and just about thick enough to hold its shape through steady use and abuse as a hair accessory (If I make more of these for Nina or anyone else, I’d start with thicker wire, but this is what was on hand).  A quick zap with the TIG welder on both ends of the spiral gives nicely balled ends that’ll hopefully help give the spirals some friction in hair.

Sets of hair spirals, sanded & ready to wear!

Zac made three extra spirals, so this weekend we took some demo photos:

Because my hair is shorter than Nina’s, I like using three spirals. The extra one on top locks in the short bits of hair:

Nina, thank you so much for being our very first interview! We heart you and we hope you love your spirals, and that they go over fabulously at your office.

If anyone else would like to order a pair (or threesome) of spirals, drop Zac an email at zac@clockstonestudios.com. And yes, when you get them you can ask for a tutorial on how to put them in. We’re thinking they’ll be $6 each, so $12 for a pair and $18 for three. I’d personally recommend you get three if your hair is at your shoulders – for longer hair, a pair should work just fine.

Tomorrow we’ll be posting next week’s interview, which is with Jack Stratton of Writing Dirty. Yay!

P.S. Sorry, it looks like we’re fresh out of ponies.

Author name:
Sara
Discussion:
5 Comments