When I lent my services to a collegue who was working on a film about 12 years ago, I was introduced to the world of cnc. I remember watching this huge machining centre milling out a slab of mdf and turning it into a fantastic set of gears. I knew that it would have taken me hours to achieve the same thing with traditional power tools. I decided then that I would invest in a cnc router for my own business Oxenham Design. At that time I could turn on a computer, but even to check email seemed like a crazy set of operations. I persevered and learned every piece of relevant software I could get my hands on. I am now fortunate enough to be using Vectric's ASPIRE software, and Techno cnc routers, which has helped us to create some amazing projects, both in part, or in full. I thought that this blog would be a great place to share "behind the scenes" adventures with the software, materials and equipment we use, as well as the projects we build.

Thursday 16 February 2012

Ontario Tsunami Claims One Victim

I got to the shop a little early today as I was excited to test the bubble tanks we made yesterday. These 3 tanks will go behind our portholes in the new design studio. It will look great with tinted water and backlit by the shop lights.  I set up the tanks ready for leak testing them, as well as wanting to try out the air curtain stone that will create the wall of bubbles. These tanks are about 18" X 18" x 3" deep. By my calculation, this is 4.2 gallons of water. Now almost 99.9 percent of the time, things go very smoothly at Oxenham Design. However, upon returning to the tank with the air pump, The front wall decided to blow right clean off the full tank. It ended up 5 or so feet from where it was sitting on the table. This was definitely a surprise to say the least.
 Some of us were paralyzed with fear, helpless to act.


 I realize now that all silicones are not created equal. The water came crashing across the table, across my Delta cabinet saw, down onto the compressor, and lapped gently across the 3 portholes that were lined up neatly on the floor nearby. I decided that I would clean up the saw and portholes, then go to the new space and install the 200 rivet heads I made into the ceiling, while the shop dried out.

Here's the finished portholes just before the storm. I picked up some 1/2" shouldered eyebolts that finished them off nicely! I can hardly wait to install these in-front of what will soon be very heavily reinforced bubble tanks.

And from now on, when life throws me a curve, I will just watch the video of our fly guy dancing.

8)
JO

2 comments:

  1. I'm sorry, I couldn't stop laughing the whole time reading this. Having seen the mayhem and destruction first hand this morning, this was spot on. Thank you for posting this. Good luck with flyguys tomorrow

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