iburkard.worklog

Saturday, October 14, 2006

 
I went nuts today, trying to do too many things at once. I managed to patch an old 1930's army blanket, has a cool insignia on it. I also repaired an old ROME electric heater while doing laundry and cleaning up. Obviously, cleaning up didn't happen, since there isn't a machine that cleans while I make a mess of a project.

There's an aquarium in my kitchen set up to do electrolysis (to clean metal), old cloth wiring ripped to shreds in my living room, and my supposed work room... can't even really walk in there... like hoping from patch of floor to patch of floor, which works for me since I'm tall. I also have boxes and crap strewn all over the place, going through old stuff that my brother sent me from our old house.

Here are several before and after pictures of the heater. (The heating element turned out blue in the photographs, but it's actually red.) The before picture doesn't do justice to how grungy this thing was. I completely disassembled the heater so that I could:

-Knock out dents

-Strip off the clear coat
(took two hours with rubbing compound)

-Polish the metal

-Clean up the porcelain element socket and contacts

-Fix the heating element

-Remove three broken rivets
(support for the heating element base)

-Replace rivets with brass screws

-Rewire/replace the old power chord

Someone had disassembled the heater before me (back in the day), and put it back together incorrectly. Ugh! It was nice to put the heater back together correctly, so that it regained its round shape, instead of being a wonky cylinder with a triangular profile, but you don't care about this. Images!




Thursday, October 12, 2006

 
I dusted off my painter's brain on Wednesday, and picked up a brush to do something other than prime a wall or coat a piece of furniture. I ended up with the worst painting that I've done, but the first painting I've done since 2004. It looks good from about four or five feet away in the dark.

Hopefully I'll keep painting, but with success instead of slop. I was completely unprepared for this... no easel or pallet... really basic things that just slipped my mind. I was spoiled at school, where easels, horses, and big work areas were easy to come by.

On top of being unprepared to paint, the board that I toned and sealed was almost completely water resistant. I haven't ever sealed a board before painting, but I thought that it would be nice, a clean surface, since the wood was essentially bare (no gesso, just acrylic tone). What a mistake. It was like painting with watercolors on a car.

Despite my gripes, I had a good time. I had forgotten what a thoughtful process painting is, and how horrible contact lenses are.



Sunday, October 01, 2006

 
In anticipation of the radiating heat not working in my old apartment for one reason or another, I've invested around $40 in five old heating devices.

This one is a nice 1950's Victor Electric heating fan, my favorite of the lot. I cleaned it up (brass polish shined up the paint) and worked on the wiring a bit. It's good to go. Nothing says safe like heating elements dangling in front of a spin fan blade. I'll post more before and after images of my other space heaters when I can.


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