An opportunity arose. I was asked whilst at the Petone Carnival about the animal shapes we had suspended from our Fire Sculpture. Someone was inquiring how much it would cost to purchase similar shapes from me.
For me this is big. HUGE. As a designer interested in D.I.Y. being given a job where I can spend a few hours playing with tools and making things is a dream come true. After the exchanging of details I planned how it would be done.
The Four animals I would be creating were a Kiwi, a Tuatara, a Morepork, and a Pukeko; this would end up in a kindergarten so they shapes had to be easily recognizable and safe to touch (no sharp edges). The Pukeko is a shape I'd not yet created before, this was going to be a learning curve.
I had to find an image of a pukeko and edit the shape to make the outline as recognizable as possible. I had saved the silhouettes for each of the other shapes from when I created them for the sculpture.
Using the same technique, I projected the image using a computer projector onto ply wood and sketched around the outline of all four animals in pencil. Making the most of the plywood I have; with the leftovers I'll be able to create more shapes (Hopefully for another client).
The oultines of animal shapes on the ply, seen resting on sawhorses ready to be cut out.
Tuatara Outline
Morepork and Kiwi Outline
Then it was out to the garage to cut out each of the shapes using the jigsaw. The process is one of time and precision. I need to move my body around the large piece of ply wood to find the best angle for cutting at.
When cutting with the jigsaw, eye and ear protection is a must.
Finished cutting out the Pukeko
When all four pieces are cut out I am left with a large off cut which I put aside. The four animals are then sanded by a piece of sandpaper held in my hand. This ensures that no heavy tools will damage the shapes. For any areas that need sanding a little firmer, I use the multi-tool which has a triangular shaped sanding head, but is not powerful enough to damage the wood. The edges on each of the shapes were smoothed out making them safe for children to touch.
Pukeko cutout.
Morepork cutout.
Four Animal Shapes: Tuatara, Morepork, Pukeko, Kiwi.
The four native animal shapes were sold. This was a fun project for me, D.I.Y., craft, and working with power tools is something I am passionate about. I enjoy the creation process and I love knowing that my effort is going somewhere where it will be appreciated, loved, used, and built upon; such as a kindergarten. To the best of my knowledge the next step involves the kindy children decorating the animal shapes however they see fit. Brilliant, we are growing our next generation of D.I.Y.ers.
It feels like the Happy Valley Tip Shop is my second home recently. I love the place; there is so much cool stuff that has been salvaged from the landfill that they will give away for a couple of dollars. On my latest trip there I managed to purchase some recycled timber pieces I thought ideal to build a shelf out of.
Earlier this year, a generous Auntie needed to find a new home for her previously treasured Early Childhood Education (E.C.E.) books. They were offered to my partner Shellie as she is currently studying E.C.E. and so two big boxes of books ended up in our house taking up floor space.
The timber from the tip, as well as some leftover pieces of decking timber from around the property were the perfect materials to create some storage furniture for the books.
Decking timber from around the property, it is a bit green.
Timber from the tip shop.
The timber needed some prep work, cutting to the correct lengths and sanding down certain areas. The decking timber had previously been used as a deck and was replaced, the old stuff which I used had a tinge of green to it from twenty years of moisture and mould buildup. This was sanded off with a belt sander pretty easily.
RYOBI electric belt sander.
While I'm showing off tools, below are my RYOBI tools that I have purchased recently. They are a fairly expensive purchase, yet are hard wearing, and a long lasting investment.
Battery and charger.
The bag can holds some tools, I have four batteries, an impact driver, a jigsaw, a multi-tool, and a radio.
Also seen here are a sharp saw, and a measuring tape. Both essential to a handy-man's toolbox.
I began to cut the pieces to their correct lengths with saw. I follow the old adage that my dad has told me time and time again, "Measure twice, cut once".
The small pieces of decking timber will hold the sides together, and will have the shelves nailed to them.
The earmuffs and visor keep me safe from loud noises, from powertools, and even hammers. The visor protects my eyes and face from projectiles e.g. splinters.
Each of the two sides of the bookshelf were created by nailing joining three lengths of decking timber together as one solid piece.
The two bookshelf sides.
Two saw horses helped to stand the two sides up while I nailed the shelves to them.
How to join it all together.
Seen here is the final shelf. This was an easy project that took only a couple of hours. If you have a lot of belongings with nowhere to put them, or are striving for a tidier house, this is an easy piece that can serve your needs.
The finished shelf
Does it look like recycled timber? Yes. Does it serve its purpose? Yes. It does what we need it to, as students we are looking for practicality. We don't need to own expensive brands of furniture to give us a certain financial status, we are content with practicality. The aesthetic of the book shelf is simple, clean, and functional. There is some textural beauty in the corrugations of the decking timber. These were sanded with the belt sander, giving the tops of the corrugations a clean and not green, fresh timber look, but this is contrasted with the dips in the wood which still show the old, dark, weathered timber. These little details appeal to me. I find that recycling of materials into something practical is beautiful.
The book shelf is full.
There is one more thing I would like to do to this book shelf, in accordance with my manifesto, and that is to inscribe into the wood the origin of the materials, as far back as I know; and the processes that these materials undertook in becoming the bookshelf you see now.
The timber shelves would have a history to them, a past life, a purpose for which they were previously used for. As for the decking timber, it knows twenty years of family life; twenty summers of family BBQ's and childhood adventure; twenty winters of rain, wind, and sometimes snow. These stories are something I would like to celebrate in the creation of this book shelf.
Job done. I no longer have education books all over the floor.
I live in rural Wellington with my partner Shellie, together for the past few years we have relied upon driving a car that has been loaned to us, a red Mitsubishi Lancer. One morning a couple months back we were driving to work through the busy morning traffic; it was a cold winters morning, the windows were foggy from condensation, and there was blinding sun strike hindering our safe progression to the city; ultimately this led to us being rear ended by a little old lady who was also blinded by the sun.
The Lancer
Upon closer inspection, our car got written off, the result of a bent chassis. The insurance money was paid to the owners of the car, and we were left without a vehicle.
Some of you may know I live in an area of Wellington where public transport is not an option. We needed a vehicle as soon as possible to continue going about our daily lives. We ended up buying two vehicles over two weekends.
The old scooter, it putted out and got sold for parts
Perhaps you are to the view point that the use of petrol is killing our world and anyone using a vehicle unnecessarily is kicking their boot in at mother earth. I know that my use of petrol is killing the earth, but I believe that our use of two vehicles is the most suitable mode of transport for our lifestyle.
The first vehicle we purchased is a yellow Honda Fit, the Japanese equivalent of the Honda Jazz. This 'Small Car' "Fits" our needs nicely. Although smaller than the Lancer, it has a lot of storage space, it carries up to 5 people, perfect for driving friends and family around and holding a weeks worth of gear whilst we are away from home. Also, the Fit is more fuel efficient than the Lancer, we save $10 every time we fill it up.
The Fit
For the first week we made use of the fit for all of our needs, but we soon found we each wanted to be self sufficient as far as transportation. The following weekend we purchased a Motorized Scooter; a PGO, PMX Naked 50. I originally wanted to get a motorbike but being sensible we agreed to buy something that both of us could drive.
Our new PMX
In purchasing the two vehicles we exchanged money intended as our international travel fund, into two vehicles, two assets, and in doing so, cemented our residence as being in New Zealand for the next year or so.
Shellie was thrilled with owning our own car; this meant that she could get from one place to another and have the ability to work her jobs as a nanny for two different families, being able to drive children from A to B.
I am thrilled to have the scooter because it means not having to rely on the car; being able to drive through rush hour traffic slightly faster; and most conveniently, being able to park right outside my work building in the middle of the city all day for free.
Two of my least favourite things are getting stuck in traffic and paying for petrol. In a different world I would not have to face either of these daily realities, but instead I live a life that requires my mobility. With my lifestyle the choice of vehicles that I drive complement the way I go about my daily business.
By driving a car I feel obliged to take into consideration fuel efficiency. Our current car is more fuel and money efficient than the Lancer, and the costs of driving the scooter are almost negligible; I am often taken aback by the fact that I can pay for a weeks worth of petrol for the scooter out of the few coins in my wallet.
I used to stress about having to pay money all the time just for it to turn from Liquid petrol into fumes that become lost to the air; the reality is though, that purchasing petrol has become routine. Whenever the car is empty it gets filled up. I know that this is an extremely privileged situation, but our income from working the lifestyle that we have chosen does allow for our transport costs to be covered.
I still do worry about my fuel consumption, If I lived anywhere else I would happily use public transport or even travel by bicycle. The reality is that having two vehicles opens up so many opportunities for us, yet it retains out desired lifestyle. Firstly we live in Makara, the rural part of Wellington. This place is inspiring, rugged, and beautiful. Living here has enhanced my ability to perform well as a designer and a photographer, it has encouraged my creative output, and ultimately it has promoted my emotional well-being and a happy state of mind, I wouldn't trade all of that in for a cheaper transport option.
Using the train system in Wellington is very efficient.
Vehicles allow Shellie and I to do the things we love, this includes our ability to attend scouting activities. Without a vehicle we would be unable to turn up and be scout leaders for the twenty or so children from the Karori West Scout troop, we would be depriving them of learning life skills and bush craft. We would be unable to attend Rover Scout events, depriving ourselves opportunities of self-development. Personal transport allows me to see my parents most weekends, therefore strengthening our relationship. As an adventurous couple, Shellie and I like to explore the country. Our vehicles allow for this, whether it is a road trip on State Highway 1 in our car, or a afternoon adventure with the two of us on the scooter, our appreciation of our country is made better by the use of our vehicles.
Not neglect for the environment, but passion for living. That is the reason we use machines that consume petrol and output bad emissions. The environmental impact still weighs on my mind, but not enough to change my choice of lifestyle, not yet.
This week I am lifting content straight from my university work, Yesterday I handed in and presented my first project in the course 'Experimenting with materials'. The project focussed on taking a material and destroying it in order to make something new. Destructive Creation. We worked with physical techniques such as smashing, heating techniques such as melting, and chemical techniques such as rusting. Read on for more.
Heres what Interested me about this project:
Over the course of my university life I have been able to define myself as a designer by what interests me and what I think is important. The two things that this comes down to are
1: D.I.Y., The culture that surrounds it, the practice of doing it, and all of the benefits that go along with that.
2: Sustainability, creating in a sustainable way that does not impact the earth negatively, whether this be recycling old materials, making the most of green spaces, or any number of other things.
Our second lecture of this course was inspiring to say the least. As soon as I saw the calm waves seen of the video below I knew I was watching something special. It contains all things that I love, DIY, Sustainability, Film, Fire, Re-use, and beautiful scenery to name a few.
I'll try not to get too poetic about my feelings towards this video, but I thought two things after watching this video for the first time. 1. Why aren't more people doing this, and 2. I have to do this.
After a small internet search I found a couple of lo-fi, videos showing that people already are doing this on an amateur level.
See the videos here for a gow to turn old plastic into a new and beautiful slingshot.
Needless to say it was my turn to have a go.
I started with a walk on my local beach in Makara.
My girlfriend Shellie and I walked the beach for 40 minutes filling our buckets to the top. There were bottle caps and plastic rope, and all other plastic crap you can think of.
Back at home this is our haul.
Before I could use it it needed to be sorted and washed.
Here is your daily dose of disturbing images.
As seen here, plastic discarded from people everyday that gets washed down rivers and out into the ocean gets mistaken for food by birds such as the three species of endangered albatross (There are a further 19 species of threatened albatross).
In an ideal world everyone would go out into the ocean, or down to the beach, fish out some old plastic, and use that instead of making more new stuff.
I want to work further in the area of plastic recycling, below are some of my experiments.
My first experiment was indoors on a kitchen element. The plastic melted to the extent that it was maleable but still identifiable, this created a vibrantly coloured bottle top pancake.
From this point on I opted for outdoor cooking. Using an open fireplace would give me a more intense heat, and being outside meant I wouldn't need to worry about getting bad smells throughout the house. My second attempt created a large creen/grey sheet, solid, yet able to be cut into pieces.
My next piece comprised two seperate cooks merged together, the first was perfect, using colourful plastic ropes. The second was awful, it burnt and turned to charcoal, I had used a rubbish grade of plastic. However, I was still able to chop and drill into the block.
Now I would focus my experiments a little more.
My first focussed experiment. Melting milk bottles into a goo I poured it into a cubic mould. Once cooled and removed from the mould it was scalded on the outside, once sanded away it unveiled the light coloured marbling seen here.
The next experiment was melted to extreme heats to the point that the plastic turned to liquid. The molten plsatic was poured into a mould and after bubbling, cracking and eventually setting and cooling I took to it with a band saw, exposing these brilliant marbling patterns.
My final experiment had colour. Vibrant colours that I wanted to bring out and expose. By drilling through it I exposed the colours hidden in the center.
Although it does just look like a block with holes in it, that isn't the point. The point is that by creating your own plastic mould you can create anything. Any shape that you can come up with has the potential to be made out of the rubbish found on the beach.
I awoke Saturday morning, the 1st of August, my birthday.
I slowly stretched myself awake and climbed out of bed, dressed, fed myself, and then thought. Alright lets get to it.
The car was packed to the roof. We headed out towards the Petone Waterfront and with the help of a few volunteers unloaded the car.
The work didn't start on Saturday; I had been hard at work, preparing various shapes for the sculpture any chance I had throughout the week. Using the silhouettes seen in last weeks post I was able to project onto MDF the image I wanted, draw it on, and then using my jigsaw, cut it out carefully. There were ten shapes of various sizes that I cut out with the jigsaw.
Prep for the first layer.
The organizers from the Hutt Valley Rotary club first put up the bottom section of the tower, the basis of the sculpture. This required digging post holes in the sand of more than a metre deep, and moving the base structure into place. We secured the structure to a bottom pellet, and filled the holes in with sand.
It was time for our construction to begin.
We required five round tiers with a 600mmX620mm square cut out of them so they could fit around the tower and onto a shelf we had made using decking timber.
4 Metres tall
When the first two shelves were up we could erect the top part of the tower, and the scaffolding that would allow us to work on it.
We were told it would be four Metres high, It looked a lot higher when it was standing there waiting to be worked on.
Showing off a jigsaw cut shape: the fleur de lis painted in Scouting colours, as well as a sign with my name on it.
The rain came in and made the day a little miserable, however, work pressed on. We cut out, and set in place the last three round tiers.
We had a friend and scout Hannah helping us to paint the shapes before they were hung up.
Holes were drilled throughout the sculpture that would later be widened with the jigsaw for ventilation, more holes were drilled through each tier to allow the stringing of ropes and the suspension of animals and other shapes.
Setting the Stag in place.
While Chris, Shellie, and Peter strung up the suspended shapes I climbed atop the scaffolding and mounted the Stag, Alan, atop the tower in a position of supreme power over the rest of the Petone Carnival.
Inspecting the teams rope work.
The rain was still coming down and the tide had come in right up to the sculpture, We had finished construction, but we still had to pack up our wet gear, and tidy the site. After the tidy up we admired the sculpture a while before heading to the pub for a quick beer. The planned time of 6.30 was when the sculptures were to be lit.
The finished sculpture in the gloom of dusk as the tide comes in.
A much deserved drink before the big light.
Upon returning to the beach we once more donned our fluorescent vests and walked the beach. Shellie took charge of coating the sculpture in diesel. An important job in the rain to ensure a quick ignition.
Diesel woman Shellie
The first sculpture is lit further down the beach.
When the first two sculptures were well underway with burning I was given control of the flame thrower and the task of igniting the sculpture was put in my hands.
I felt powerful with the flame gun, and within about a minute the sculpture was roaring to life, the flames battled their way through smoke and cardboard stuffing that filled the centre of the tower.
The animals were aglow with the light coming from the centre of the sculpture. The stag was shrouded in smoke, and as the fire burnt it fought its way up through the cardboard and engulfed the stag in flame, as it escaped the chimney.
Man with a flame thrower.
The smoking stag.
The whole sculpture on fire.
Originally the crowds were supposed to clear the beach and watch from afar, but within minutes of the first fire being lit the beach was full of eager bodies. When our sculpture went up the crowd surrounding it was huge, and it seemed to stay that way for the next half hour. Our hard work through the ick of rain and sand all day had paid off and people were basking in the heat of it, enjoying it.
The crowds observe the burning sculpture.
The flames went up and ate the sculpture from the inside out, we stood around guessing which animal shape would be the first to fall, snapping from its rope; surprisingly they all held very well. As it burnt on we watched in anticipation as the main supports burnt, eager to see the tower fall and crumple into a pile of flaming rubble. When it finally gave way the stag fell and crashed to the ground, on closer inspection he had smashed all of his legs and antlers off and was just a body. The fire crew scraped the large pieces into a large pile and we crowded together as it burnt on.
The flaming Stag.
The other animals warm up.
To me the whole day screamed success. I can't think of a better way to have spent my birthday, working hard on a project of passion, that the public admired, with my friends and family.