Looks like the critters will be wintering in the park. We braved the UU/BYU football traffic to stop by the park and check in on them. They seemed fine on the roller skates, so I kept the ice skates in the trunk.
Out in Herriman the mobile lights were all still working- at some point I’ll head out at dusk so we can see the big blocks lit up.
The new transformers finally arrived, and immediatly fried out. I suggested we just bypass that system and wire them directly- which works. We can’t bypass on the mobile though- so no light there. We are down to the week of the library opening, next week, when the latest transformer fix comes back. The problem wasn’t addressed on the last fix, instead the fried parts were replaced under the assumtion that my wiring or the electrician’s wiring had caused the problem (though we both knew that wasn’t the case- and that was proved out today when it all fried out again…). Now the folks who make the computer boards for the display controls have a mystery on their plate, with a fast approaching deadline- and their #1 genius out on vacation.
Meanwhile, I could finally put the stone caps on the tops of the units, as I had been waiting til we could test the lights. The white unit (far right) needed a bit of tweaking so I brought it home and worked it as minimally as I could, as I don’t want to risk snapping it with vibrations of power tools. It should be fine now. I’ll head back out tomorrow and set it, as well as mix up more 5 minute epoxy with milled glass as grout and do some touch-up, then give it all a final wax.
How many lighting consultants does it take to turn on a lightbulb?
This seemed to be an unanaswerable question for a few hours today, but it turns out that 1 is the answer (plus 1 electrician)- but it will take another week.
The lights in the mobile were mostly on for about 10 minutes, the lights for the wall pieces are still waiting to fire. Parts need to be sent back to the manufacturer, reengineered and sent back, reinstalled, and tweaked.
Since the panel box is at the 40′ ceiling, this means the lift will darken the library entrance for another week as well.
All for a fancy chandelier. (the image of the full stone side is with no electric lights, just sunlight)
The Pole Of Doom, unbendable and unhangable- or so the legend told. Many a Hero had entered its lair and made the attempt to lift it 30 feet in the air and clip it to the hanging pipe: and many a Hero had never returned.
That’s why Shawn and I work as a team. He knew a sailor’s trick of binding webbing to a vertical pole, and I figured how we could leapfrog our two electric hoists coupled with a few big lanyards to daisychain The Pole Of Doom (TPOD) to clip into the big hook in the sky.
Three hours later, no one had died, no lifts had toppled through the walls of the building, and the pole was flying like a horizontally levitating pencil.
Then came the plan I’d come up with to hang the big Yellow box, involving a rope from the end of TPOD & another rope dropping from the arm of the Y Box- both ropes joining to a separate hoist a ground level, and the hoists hooked to webbing held down by 300 pounds of sand.
The other side of TPOD should have had its own 400 pound weight, as well as the 390 pounds necessary to counterbalance the stone end. But I overthought it, and wound up thinking wrong, changed the original plan, and only had the 390 counterbalance. This led to a reimagineering of the two hoists on the opposite end, with one hoist moving to anchor a small 860 pound vertical lift we rolled in from another room.The back & forth cost us a fair chunk of time, but once things were in place it all went back up soon enough- about a 14 hour day.
Which just left another full day of wiring and tweaking and taking off salt cubes and reatatching them, and spinning the big Yellow box 90 degrees by adding another caribiner without taking its load off the sculpture- this took a great bit of high magician skill.
It is a Legend. It’s a blog Legend. And it is true, in Herriman Library.
Shawn and I headed out early and arrived at the library around 8 a.m. The first image is the lift we’ll use to take the entire mobile down and put it back up. The prior lift was exponentially larger and had nearly double the load capacity- but this little unit can really snake into some hard areas, and we couldn’t have gotten it down as easily with the larger lift, or at all due to the bent pole. The bent pole that made this redo necessary created some problematic areas- the big hook ends both twisted, one end wanted to let the whole side slip off, and the other side wanted to never let go. There are a few close-ups of the big hooks so you can get an idea of the problem solving on-the-fly to get everything to behave. The bend also set the stone side directly in the middle of the room, as the weight came off the block side- and the stone fans settled down on the arms of the lift and swung under the levels of the lift arms. We had to fish them out of the way by dangling down the hook end of a cinch strap while slowly rotating the lift. Lots of silly business like that kept us from moving too quickly, but we hit a nice persistant stride and walked along till the entire piece was on the ground.
We were home by 7pm. Really, kind of amazing that we could do it all in one day.
Today I loaded the new pole into the back of a 24′ U-Haul, and delivered it out to the site, then loaded the bent pole and brought it back to the studio. Flying the new pole will have a whole new set of issues, but I hope I’ve thought of most of them and how we can keep everything flying in harmony as we pile on the mass. It seems possible to get it all back up in one day, as long as we keep our wits about us and anticipate the canteliver. We’ll find out on Saturday.
Yesterday the pole recieved a clean-grind of the entire surface, then the clear-coat. Even with a respirator on and the shop fully open the clear-coat nearly shut me down. Really wicked stuff when it starts to kick off, but nothing else will act as a primer & sealer for bare metal. Out at the library they are pouring a concrete pad at the entrance with heating coils- getting the coils in place took some time, and now the concrete has to fully cure. This puts me another week out. Next Wed we hope to get a lift back in over the new concrete, and Shawn and I will take the whole thing down. Then the lift is used by the construction crew to replace drywall that was hung incorrectly, and Shawn and I return over the first weekend of October to re-install the mobile. Til then, it will float out in the shop (and through the door to the studio).
The trans-pole for Herriman library needs to be replaced, after being reviewed by a an outside engineering firm. If you recall, it had bent quite a bit. This is the new pole: a 4″x 21′ standard pipe, ground down to bare metal (5 hours of grinding).
I also changed up the hanging hardware, as the hooks on the bent pole were not formally strong enough. I switched to the pear-shaped forms, as they function better to hang drop of the two sides.
The big D-Ring is also a shift- about two to three times the size of the prior ring to read with the massive pipe.
The washers across the top are also a beefier upgrade from the prior pipe, for running wire.
My studio monkey, Walt, helped get all the hanging hardware welded in place this morning, supervising my welding process, and provided the momentum for our lightening flash errand to the nut-and-bolt shop. Once the studio labor was completed, we all ( the in-laws: Walt & Kaye and the wife) drove out to Herriman for our second attempt to see the mobile. A good portion of Herriman caught fire yesterday and burned up the hillsides and a few houses- but the library is fine: and we looked at the mobile and wall pieces. We all reloaded from Walt’s Buick into the 64.5 PonyCar for a quick drive-by Davis “Quail” Park confirmed that the quail were still in place and roosting for the winter season, on our convertible sunset tour up Big Mountain to see the trees changing color.
Now the pipe is ready for a clean grind and clear coat for the mobile trans-pipe.
Next Wednesday is likely the day I will take down the entire mobile-scupture, then the construction crew will use the lift to rework their slightly slipshod drywall work, and then I’ll re-hang the whole thing that weekend with the new pole.
DangerHart 