Looks excellent all together, especially on a tall tank like that. What's your strategy going to be for erasing the seams? Lots of epoxy putty maybe? Or a bead of pond foam followed by a rough sanding? I bet you could even pack in some small amount of aragocrete and not even care too much about curing the base off of it...
As the Aflac goat would say.. "Naw Naw Naaaw"
I'll be siliconing all the gaps with Dow Corning 732 which is about the toughest silicon made. It's clear so it acquires the material color it's on. It will almost completely disappear. The bottom plate on the left tank side broke in three places. I siliconed it together with this and you can't see it even though there's a thick bead across the center of that plate. Siliconing it will stiffen it all up and help it all support itself.
But wait!! There's more!
I've made several hundred Thing/Creatures that will go directly over the silicone I apply totally covering the gaps with 3D visual candy. When I'm done I don't think anyone will even suspect the tiled nature of this installation - except all of you.
Here's a few of my little creatures:
I have been subscribed and following since your first couple of posts. Love this update! They look great!
Thanks mkbtank!
Kcress,
Any guesses how many pounds of wet clay went into this project?
Actually I'm honored to be able to see an artist at work. You've inspired me into trying to make some free form pieces for an up coming 150 tall we will be putting together in the near future.
Thanks.
Jon D.
How much clay? I shutter to think about it...
Um.. I don't have enough fingers.. Mu s t u s e t o e s t o o.
Nineteen. Nineteen 25 pound bags. For the math impaired that's 475 pounds.
I would estimate that
fired I'm looking at about 6 pounds per plate. That means about 84lbs for plates. Plus another 15lbs for Things. Oh, plus about 30lbs for the standpipe hides. So about 130lbs total (estimated).
Earlier we wondered about porosity. This has it in spades. If you stick your tongue on it it sticks like you licked a freezing pipe. Almost scary. This is because the moisture is being sucked into the clay. It's how you can tell if its been fired or not.
I would heartily encourage you or anyone else to give this a shot. It's a lot of fun.
Wow!!! That came out great.
Many thanks canesfan. (Cute aviee you got there!)
WOW!!! Looks awesome! I can't wait to see the seams filled... and more so, the tank filled. I just went back a page and was reminded just how big this tank is from when your son was inside of it.
Maybe I missed it from your previous updates... how long does it take for the motors to go from the viewing height to the maintenance height? How loud are the motors and gears when in motion? Any chance you can upload a video?
Meee too. I want the seams filled so we can move forward.
My son helped me get the bottom left two plates in. It's getting crowded in there. He may need to help again on the lower joint covering. I've dumped 24lbs since Nov. (eznet2u*) but I'm probably still too wide to get in there now, with all the structures jutting out of the back wall.
*
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=17520889&postcount=275
It takes about 4 minutes, I'm guessing, to go up or down. Eventually I'll have a controller that I just hit the button and it stops when the limit is reached.
Movie.. I still have no way to make a movie. I have a Nikon D80 that I love. Unfortunately it wasn't until the next model came out that came with 60FPS HD movie ability. :sad2:
