from yesterday’s post, I have no studio space and very few tools from which to make a work for Suse’s show Once more, with love, but I have to get my piece(s) back to Australia by the end of this month. So put me down for some ca-ray-zee apartment=studio action.
The day before yesterday I ordered a new drill press (yes, off Amazon…) and while I was at it a new crock pot for pickle (to replace the rice cooker I was using), though I won’t be soldering for a few more weeks til my regulators and torches arrive. Faced with the challenge of making an entirely cold-connected piece of work, I’m loath to let go of every making crutch that I hold dear, so paring my studio back to a drill press and saw frame is what I see as my minimum tool requirements. Along with AutoCad and my printer, loaded up with adhesive paper, as usual. I am starting to wonder, though, if a flexi-drive might have been the smarter choice…
This I have done before, though in my own practice (as opposed to the limits put on the Part B Steal This works) it’s not really ever intentionally. Some works evolve into their forms, and at the end I can look at it and say “Look Ma, no solder!” but it’s rare, even though the amount of soldering I actually do is almost negligible. (It’s not the amount, it’s what you do with it that counts, right?) But to make without piercing – no inlet for the saw blade? Nev-ah! I even took a pin vise to Italy with me when I went to Prato in 2008 and pierced dozens of holes, by hand, through which a saw blade was then threaded.
Heeenyways, back to the new drill press. After researching what was on offer I eventually went back to the Proxxon mini press. You might recognise it as exactly that which I had back in Melbourne, but with a different power cord. It was a hard worker, and though sometimes it felt a little on the small side, there wasn’t much that I couldn’t get it to do, so I figured when you’re onto a good thing…
My air compressor back in Melbourne, on the other hand, was too small for my sandblast cabinet. You might have heard about it already, I think I complained about it here. Quite a lot. This time I’m going larger, to a storage tank of 60 gallons (227 L) from 55L. To quote Tim the Tool Man, Urgh, ur urrr. More Power!