Thoughts On the Ride Home

...previous next...

Cheyenne, Laramie, Rawlins, Rock Springs. Just places that have the fuel and food I need along the path I'm going. A hundred years ago they offered food for men and horses and the wagons they pulled west. I wonder what travellers who stop at these towns will need in a hundred years from now?

The second day of mold making went much better, After a couple of experiments with Nair, I spent 4 hours the previous night shaving off the hairs not currently stuck in the furry mold outside. I shaved the front half of my body leaving the back half hairy-the molds were only going half way around. The Moon, nearly a quarter lit, is slipping from view off to the left of the road. Amazing how big it appears when down near the horizon.

I just don't understand why the tips of my fingers hurt so much. Pain on the visible cuts and scabs that populate each digit are understandable, but I see no marks on the tips. Still can't find lotion. 300 miles down, 1000 to go. Need gas soon, will find or buy hand goo then. Did find glitter nail polish. Re-glitter my nails. After a week at the bizarre, I'm not quite ready to face the reality of the next 51 weeks.

Tunnel: Breathe in...1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6... 7... 8... 9... 10... 11... 12... exhale. Pause writing for some FAST hill running and on into Utah. Clear air-swear I can see the lights of SLC on the distant clouds in the distance even though it is still 75 miles away.

The next day, we started casting earlier to avoid the late day heat about 6 am. Lessons learned, we made three big changes. The first was that I'd be laying down instead of fighting gravity. To this end, I put the full sized printed image I had made on the concrete floor, and covered it with 2 layers of clear plastic (one to be removed after the first cast was made).

The second problem was gone after the previous night's shaving session. Hair was a very minor problem the second day.

The third problem had been the heat of the setting plaster. I bought 60 lbs of ice and layed out a bunch of plastic bags so that as the plaster began to set, they could put sacks of ice on top to pull away some of the heat. I also put 4 2x4s under the clear plastic sheets to make a little tub out of the plastic-if I got too hot, they could dump water and or ice into the pool to cool me off. (We didn't need to use this contingency.) Jon decided to make the 2 molds in 3 sections each. Starting at the hips, they applied the plaster-soaked towels toward the feet. A strong and smooth seam was made at the hips and when it hardened, vaseline was gooed on. The hips and legs were setting and warming up before the upper body was started from the hip seam working up toward the chest, arms and neck. Before I was completely covered, the bottom section of the mold was removed. A seam was made at the neck, and the 3rd section was the face and head.

We made only one face/head mold; when the 2 body sections of the second pose were made, the already dry face mold was made to fit with the second chest section also. The idea was to use the face mold twice, but I quickly decided to change the sculpture to leave the head off of the front pose. This made it easier to complete the project on time and also made the sculpture more interactive-people could get behind the cast and insert their own head into the illustration.

The whole second day came off with few problems-we were done with 5 mold sections in 3 hours. On to removal of the big silver tarp and clean-up, and starting of the fiberglass casting process. The back of my right calf is itchy where a big chunk of scab is trying to peel away. It is still pretty knarly where I lost the main gear guard of my bike out on the playa. It only took a few rakings of the big gear down the back of my leg as I dropped my bike to the ground during dismount before I reassembled the plastic guard.

...previous next...

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15


		Cheyenne, Laramie, Rawlins, Rock Springs. Just places that have the fuel and food I need along the path I'm going. A hundred years ago they offered food for men and horses and the wagons they pulled west. I wonder what travellers who stop at these towns will need in a hundred years from now?
The second day of mold making went much better, After a couple of experiments with Nair, I spent 4 hours the previous night shaving off the hairs not currently stuck in the furry mold outside. I shaved the front half of my body leaving the back half hairy-the molds were only going half way around.			The Moon, nearly a quarter lit, is slipping from view off to the left of the road. Amazing how big it appears when down near the horizon.
	I just don't understand why the tips of my fingers hurt so much. Pain on the visible cuts and scabs that populate each digit are understandable, but I see no marks on the tips. Still can't find lotion. 300 miles down, 1000 to go. Need gas soon, will find or buy hand goo then. Did find glitter nail polish. Re-glitter my nails. After a week at the bizarre, I'm not quite ready to face the reality of the next 51 weeks.
Tunnel: Breathe in...1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6... 7... 8... 9... 10... 11... 12... exhale. Pause writing for some FAST hill running and on into Utah. Clear air-swear I can see the lights of SLC on the distant clouds in the distance even though it is still 75 miles away.
	The next day, we started casting earlier to avoid the late day heat about 6 am. Lessons learned, we made three big changes. The first was that I'd be laying down instead of fighting gravity. To this end, I put the full sized printed image I had made on the concrete floor, and covered it with 2 layers of clear plastic (one to be removed after the first cast was made).
The second problem was gone after the previous night's shaving session. Hair was a very minor problem the second day.
The third problem had been the heat of the setting plaster. I bought 60 lbs of ice and layed out a bunch of plastic bags so that as the plaster began to set, they could put sacks of ice on top to pull away some of the heat. I also put 4 2x4s under the clear plastic sheets to make a little tub out of the plastic-if I got too hot, they could dump water and or ice into the pool to cool me off. (We didn't need to use this contingency.) Jon decided to make the 2 molds in 3 sections each. Starting at the hips, they applied the plaster-soaked towels toward the feet. A strong and smooth seam was made at the hips and when it hardened, vaseline was gooed on. The hips and legs were setting and warming up before the upper body was started from the hip seam working up toward the chest, arms and neck. Before I was completely covered, the bottom section of the mold was removed. A seam was made at the neck, and the 3rd section was the face and head.
	We made only one face/head mold; when the 2 body sections of the second pose were made, the already dry face mold was made to fit with the second chest section also. The idea was to use the face mold twice, but I quickly decided to change the sculpture to leave the head off of the front pose. This made it easier to complete the project on time and also made the sculpture more interactive-people could get behind the cast and insert their own head into the illustration.

The whole second day came off with few problems-we were done with 5 mold sections in 3 hours. On to removal of the big silver tarp and clean-up, and starting of the fiberglass casting process.		The back of my right calf is itchy where a big chunk of scab is trying to peel away. It is still pretty knarly where I lost the main gear guard of my bike out on the playa. It only took a few rakings of the big gear down the back of my leg as I dropped my bike to the ground during dismount before I reassembled the plastic guard.