chris bathgate latest

The work above is from Chris Bathgate. I've been aware of Chris's work for quite sometime. I have been a subscriber to his newsletter and so I was aware of his recent MIT gig. A few newsletters ago he talked of his experience at MIT and was so thrilled to know that he had this opportunity. With a more recent newsletter it seems his MIT gig is getting even sweeter. Good for him! 

Well I read his newsletter sans photos because I was with my girls in a remote hiking area when I read his newsletter. Today I decided to check out my blog reading list and low and behold Chris has updated his blog. It's interesting that he popped up in my blog feed recently and that I have taken to the blog-o-sphere again. Anyway, I really enjoyed his latest posts. I think Eric might be interested in his 5 axis discussion.

 

swest rectifier resto

My old Swest rectifier has taken a beating from all the years of work anodizing and etching, etc. This past week I decided to strip it and repaint the sheetmetal housing for it. Adam told me I couldn't paint it red, so I had to find something kind of close to the original paint. After getting it painted, I reassembled and made some 3d printed bushings to isolate the terminals from the case. Then I made some stencils so I could paint the text with some sign paint I have had sitting around for years. I still need to pull out the stencil sections inside the letters but it turned out ok. I probably should have taken time getting things lined up and a bit more level, but it's probably just going to get abused by my students anyway. It gets harder and harder to keep the studio nice. If they don't pay for it, then they usually don't care about taking care of it. I'm starting to sound like an old curmudgeon...

 

clear irons anodizing

Last week during Spring Break I anodized some parts for Eric. He wanted me to anodize some trays, coasters, and some prototype parts that he had machined. I've been meaning to get to these, but have had a lot going one. Since I was working in the studio on my own work over the break, it was a good time to get these parts going. I did a few parts with no dye as Eric had been curious about this. They turned out AWESOME. The first tray (copper/orange color) turned out amazing too, but the other trays are not quite so dramatic. I had some trouble with these trays as they are heavy and my fixture is not quite up to snuff as well as my various anodizing baths being a bit small for this size work. The coasters that I will be doing are bound to turn out better since they're smaller. The non-dyed parts are just so sweet as they really make these already awesome machined parts look so good.

penland summer 2018

Penland's summer catalog is out now. Look who made the cover! Rachel Kedinger is awesome, right?!  I'll be teaching an anodizing workshop in the first summer session. Sign up if you want to come learn about anodizing and dying aluminum, aluminum etching, and various resist techniques for both processes. It should be a good time!

anodizing setup

I built an aluminum anodizing set-up for the studio at school. I was bummed that I couldn't bring the set-up I made at UWM due to all of the hazardous chemical and shipping. I ended up buying new buckets and then welded up a new cathode plate surround last week. I got most of the chemicals mixed last semester except for the nitric bath, so I took care of that last week. I put labels on the baths this week, mixed dyes, and made labels for the colors. I gave the students a demo this past week and we did a small demo batch of samples. I'm really happy with the colors we're getting. I think the students were stoked on the process. 

They get to make 20 samples now to assist them in figuring out what finish their letter opener and utensils might possibly have. I hope to build a cart on wheels that can house chemicals and rectifier. I am just maxed out for space in my teaching studio. I keep crossing my fingers that we'll get a new building at some point during my career here. Wishful thinking...

chris bathgate

caswell: knuckles

My friend Natalie sent this screen capture from Caswell's website. I hadn't been to Caswell's site for a while, so it was cool to see that they used Mike Isabella's Knuckles cutter for advertising their anodizing kits.

waea anodizing workshop

Two weekends ago I taught an anodized aluminum workshop for the WAEA (Wisconsin Art Education Association) Conference that was held in Milwaukee. I had a full class and the DCRL was crowded with art educators from around the state. The night before, I created several aluminum cuff bracelets and John McGeen cut some 2"x2" sample pieces and sheared and filed the cuff blanks for me. I stayed late and polished everything. Then I got to the studio at 5am the next morning and ran several batches of pieces through the baths so that the group could focus on the color and resists when they arrived at 9am. The workshop was a hit and I think everyone had a great time. I was so pleasantly surprised to see a few of my former students in the workshop. They now have teaching jobs so I was so thrilled to hear about their success stories and get a chance to reconnect. I had a great day.