Studio Progress

Found a source of plastic fifty-five gallon barrels, Western Container in New Hope.  They have recycled blue barrels for twenty-five dollars a piece, and I was able to squeeze four of them into the minivan (one across the passenger seats, and three in the back.  We typically leave the last row of seats out of the van.)  I need to construct a base and frame that will hold the barrel four feet off of the floor, support about five hundred pounds of weight, and keep the barrel from falling off.  I also need a small base cabinet to put a double steel sink in.  Sometimes I can find the sinks and cabinets at garage sales.

For the slab roller, I cut and trimmed four pieces of square stock for the cable brackets.  The cable brackets are in the four corners of the table, with two steel pipes above and below the table that are the rollers that are supported by the cables.  As you turn a wooden wheel attached to the lower steel roller, it moves along the cables, and pulls the upper roller along.  I need to hit the home improvement store for the metal crimps that I need to re-bind the ends of the cable together once I install the new brackets.

Two Weeks Off

I was laid off from work on Thursday.  During the exit interview, I had a phone call from another company, offering me a new position.  The new job is a little farther away than the old one, but its with a good group of people.

I plan to take two weeks off to work on projects around the property, including getting a studio going in the ground floor of the barn.  The barn studio is supposed to be temporary, until we can get the old three car garage converted into the new studio.  That will probably include putting on a new roof.  That is a project for another time.

I'm looking for a plastic barrel to use as a water reservoir for the sink in the studio, since we don't have water out to the barn yet, and the barn is not heated in winter.  I want to use a raised barrel for the water supply, something that I can fill from a hose, and then plumb it to a double sink.  The water will drain through a flexible hose outside the back door.  Its a temporary solution.  I can re-use the barrel later as a rain barrel for the garden.

The other project that I am working on today is the rebuilding our slab roller.  I had built it back in New Jersey to help Julie with the pottery classes that she taught at a summer camp.  There are four pieces of angle iron, one on each corner of the slab roller where the cables attach that have bent over the years.  I am replacing them with square stock steel.  I also need to raise the height of the table by about four inches, and add some corner braces to strengthen the structure.