Some things I have been working on in the studio over the past couple of weeks. I've been a little lazy on posting some things. Click the images for some descriptions.

This weeks theme was Geometry 

1. Damian Alzua
2. Fankie Toan
3. Patrick Rademaker
4. Hunter Creel
5. Skye Livingston
6. Samantha Clark
7. Susan Taylor Glassglow
8. Amy Masters
9. Brooke Frankly
10. Sorry Brett I forgot to get a picture.

Finished another small piece today. Next comes clean up, and Ill need to pickle the piece, which is a solution that cleans flux and oxidation from the metal. After pickling hollowware metal ill have to induce it to a baking soda and water solution to neutralize the pickle. If you leave pickle inside of a piece overtime it will continually eat away at the metal in this case the copper. After neutralizing, the filing and sanding begins to refine all of the edges and sloppy solder work. It would be nice to be able to solder perfect seams consistently, but with so many overlapping seams things tend to get a unorganized for time to time, and thats why I always keep a file in close distance. 

This week I organized a drawing exchange at Arrowmont the theme was "Monster Portraits"

Also there's a list below of the names of participants. 

1. Matt Dercole
2. Hunter Creel
3. Nick Deford 
4. Frankie Toan
5. Mary Ward
6. Brooke Frank
7. Sarah Makkaffing
8. Brooke Hents
9. Ann Morton
10. Damian
11. Marie Montgomery
12.Karis
13. Skye Livingston
14. Amy Master 
15. Brett Beasley
16. N/a

Went Hiking for the second Saturday in a row. One thing that is great about being at Arrowmont is having the Smokey Mountain National Forest in your backyard.  I can't be more grateful for this opportunity in life. 

We hiked the Alum Trail in route to Mount Le Conte and it was a 2500 foot elevation change.

It was a little steep in some spots.

Alum Cave

It was beautiful day yesterday even though it was overcast and raining at some points. 

This next year I am looking forward to more involvement in the surface of my work, so I have setup a booth for airbrushing acriclyics, automotive paints, and some powder coating. Most of my work is powder coated copper and brass, and just feel that it is time to shift gears. 

Here are a couple of photos of my booth built for super cheap. I have ventilation throughout the whole room along with a fan pulling through the back of the box. This booth is built from standard furnace filters. I believe that this booth cost 30 dollars to build along with some scrap materials from around the shop. 

The dimensions are 30 inches wide, 24 inches tall, and 20 inches deep.

I still need to setup a simple rack for hanging work for spraying. 

Last night I finished up a small tool stand for my stakes and steel surfaces to rest upon. 

I believe it is 30 inches tall and 34 inches wide. The top opening is 2 inches wide and the lower opening is 1 inch wide. 

The top rack is going to be used for my t stakes and my medium sized round spheres, and the smaller tooling fits on the small rack below.

I realized after putting my stakes on the rack that  there isn't enough room for everything. I should have made it bigger, but highlight is a bitch and I am in constant learning mode doing these types of things since I have no formal woodworking education. 

One thing I enjoy about this simple design is that it can be in constant flux. Ill more than likely be adding other racks and holders for specific items. 

I picked up a couple pieces of local hardwood this week, because I need and sturdy surface for my big orange vice. The stumps i picked up weren't quite tall enough so i decided to lift the stump a little bit.  I am usually sitting down when I am at a vice and find that I like the top of the vice to be about 32 inches tall. This won't be the same for everyone, but with the chairs I have it seems to work out pretty well. This is also the first day I have had in a while to sit outside and work. 

Well anyways what I am doing here is... I cut down three 2X4's at 10 inchs a piece. I wanted to raise the stump 6 inches in total height, so I carved out three sections that were 4 X 4 X 1.5 so I could fit the wood into the slots. I used three half inch X 4 inch bolt screws to connect the 2 X 4's together. My impact drill makes this process super easy.

This is the final product with vice mounted. I always find that the tripod design works best for me and my working style. 

Its a blurry picture but this is where I was at the end of the Day on Monday. I have been feeling pretty good the goals that I have accomplished this past week.

I am a little behind, but I started moving into my studio last week on Monday morning. Unboxing and unpacking is a lot of work.