Yavanna and I have been very busy these last several weeks. We’re almost done with all the paperwork needed to close on the house we’re taking a mortgage out on.
Little One is also getting rather excited, as she’s looking foward to painting her own room with “princess colors”!
We’ve also been working out spending budgets, house floor plans, and last but not least, storage shed floor plans.
To recap from the previous post, my wife had promised me a separate area of my own to do creating in. In exchange, she had extracted the promise from me that none of my stuff could stay in the house.
She did want a floor plan to determine if I was intending on using my space efficiently, so I gave her one:
Floor plan for shed, revision 4.0
For $5300 (including sales tax), this is being built for us by a custom shed designer. Very solid airtight solid treated cedar construction. Metal roof against the snow load during winter. It provides nice shade during the worst of summer and promises to prevent warm air from escaping in winter. It is 10 feet wide, 16 feet long, and about 15 feet high. We get the option for placing two windows anywhere, as well as 10 feet of extra plank along the walls for a bench area. We also purchased as part of that package a loft option which comes with a ladder, and a complete set of electrical outlets and wiring throughout.
I decided to do the following with it:
Space utilization in the loft vaguely resembles how I originally had started out with in Sanders AZ with an 8 X 12 shed halfway devoted to my own use. I had started out a few years ago originally playing with a CNC machine upon bismuth and tufa rock on my side, with the other half given over to Sterlite stacking plastic storage boxes from the household. It wasn’t until much later that I developed the courage to branch out toward silver, then aluminum, then iron for materials.
It also doesn’t hurt to have my drill press and my bandsaw up on that same level as machinist support tools for drilling and cutting base metal stock. If there is one thing I had discovered by having both CNC and silversmithing facilities, it is that with the CNC I can create tools to support the silversmithing such as and engraving vise and a drawplate. However, I also discovered at the same time that keeping my base metal filings and my silver filings separate is a total pain in the buttocks! Keeping base metal processing in the loft away from silver processing on the main level will be a huge improvement.
I’ve not yet had the occasion to be as successful with carbide bits and high speed steel fly cutting upon fine silver… but there’s plenty in the silversmithing art that I can practice on prior to going back there. I think if I commit to reserving the CNC for engraving silver rather than machining silver then I can eventually complete the repertoire: and waste less silver in the process. Live and learn!
The ground floor promises enough room for all the stuff I wanted to play with together but never had the chance.
Frankly, I’d trade my ham station and test equipment and electronic components in an eyeblink if I could for extra tools like a rolling mill or a hydraulic press, but there’s no-one who would buy it in this recession. Maybe I’ll get lucky and come up with an idea to improve the art of silversmithing with a unique apparatus. Then again, there might be times when I might need to take a hiatus from art and return to technical. Who knows?
I assign the remaining room on the ground level by priority of safety. Access to ventilation is a must for polishing, so I gave that section its own window. Since 2010 is the year I’m discovering lapidary, I want to save the entire back of the ground level for wet work. I really want a water drip if possible for running freely over rock being cut by flex shaft… because anything less for free form lapidary will punish my diamond bits and saws severely. I’ll rig a garden hose water feed for summer, and for winter I’ll cobble up a water recirculation tank and sump pump.
The best place for fusing and firing glass, porcelain, and precious metal clays is going to be just near the front door. I’ll keep my 5 inch Paragon kiln on a metal table with the requisite two foot safety radius away from wooden walls and other flammable areas.
By process of elimination, that therefore leaves an entire quarter of the ground level to be devoted to a conventional silver shaping area. My father-in-law has offered me an old heavy wooden desk for a jewelers’ bench.
With my father’s birthday money I purchased a Miniflam torch. I’m not wanting to use sterling or produce large items so an acetylene air setup is no longer appropriate for me, so I played it safe and sold it to a local welding shop. I’d much rather have the flexibility to producing precision seams in pieces of fine silver that I’ve already forged to spring hardness. I can do my annealing and drawing of fine silver stock using my existing butane pocket torch. I’ve already used this strategy to very good effect last Christmas. I’m also hoping that highly judicious touches of the Miniflam will allow me to utilize fusing to seal bezel around heat sensitive stone.
So that’s how I’m organizing my new space. It should be operational in about a month. In a few days we’re going to start moving from my aunt-in-law’s to our new house, and all of my time will be committed to establishing the new household.
Again,
Aulë
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