For such a small and seemingly simple piece the medallion for the Mechanical fish involved lots of steps and procedures. It also meant that I would need a 1/16″ ballnose bit – something I don’t use very often.
Looks like a fancy hubcap
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Dan Sawatzky’s Blog
Finally an idea I like
Designing projects, especially one for myself can be challenging at times. When it’s for me I tend to second guess myself more. I’ve been trying to come up with a medallion on the frame under the mechanical fish for some time. Over the last days I’ve done numerous sketches and a lot of research. Finally I just buckled down, determined to come up with something cool.
Grand entry
Something as cool as a mechanical fish submarine needs a dock with a grand entry system. A drawbridge is just the ticket. Today I added the hinges and mounting plates for the chains (yet to be added) The rock work also was applied today. The key to finding the time to accomplish a project like this is to do a little each day. It’s a great reward at the end of the day.
Rockin’
This week is one of sadness for our family as we lost my father-in-law after a long and hard fight against cancer. Spend time with those you love while they are with you. Tell them you love them often. A little work was done in the shop but only in small bits and pieces.
This thing has TEETH
The new house has been dominating my working schedule in the last days, mainly laying floor tile. The good news is there are only four or five more days of work until that task is behind me. We keep work going in the shop however with various small projects underway. The Mechanical fish is on that list of course.
Whistle Punk Hollow Adventure Golf project done!
Yesterday, we put the finishing touches to Whistle Punk Hollow Adventure Golf. It was a good sized project that kept us busy for a little better than five months. Many of the components were designed in EnRoute, and machined from 30lb Precision Board on our MultiCam. This allowed us to produce a better product, and much faster than if we had done it all by hand. Here’s a virtual tour of the finished project.
More lights!
I’ve been busy for the last while on other projects but tonight I managed to squeeze in a few minutes on the mechanical fish project. Todays task was to hollow out the eye sockets, inside the hatch, gill and mouth areas of the fish. In each of these areas I inserted LED lights that would add a magical glow. Ping pong balls cut in half proved to be perfect solution for the eye balls as the blue lights glow through beautifully and with just the right intensity. I still have to design and route the ramp from the door to submarine hatch but other than that the upper portions of piece are now ready for hand sculpting of the details and then paint.
Fishing derby for all
Our little mechanical fish sign ‘competition’ is getting lots of interest. And I’m geting lots of emails and messages asking if others can play and if so what the rules are. The answer is YES! It all started as a dare of sorts. Jamie Oxenham built a nice little sign for his own studio. Doug Haffner and I were sitting with Jamie at the workshop in Indiana and we commented how we liked his fish.
How to hang a fish
The mechanical fish needed some substantial hangers to look convincing. I decided some hefty I-beams were the order of the day but they needed to be a little fancy of course. Some swoopy curves and some drilled holes would do the trick nicely in a steampunk, victorian sort of fashion.