Before Boardacious

In my previous post, I showed off "Boardacious" pretty much in his final form. He still needs polishing, but I'm very unlikely to shape him much more. However, I thought you might like to see "Boardacious" before he was as boardacious as he became. I dug up some pictures that I took with my first camera. I didn't document the whole process, but there's enough here to give you an idea of how things went.

So, I'll start this story in the middle to keep it short. About 13 to 14 billion years after the universe appears to have expanded from nothing, the universe eventually got around to producing a big chunk of what we call alabaster and deposited it in the Colorado foothills around Ft. Collins. It was there that a fellow with a front loader dug out a big chunk of alabaster and dragged it back to his storefront. It was as this storefront where I, stumbling around unsure of myself, spotted a particular piece of the original chunk that looked like it would be suitable for what I had in mind. Although I was uncertain of my own vision, I could see its potential.


I humbly, and probably too cautiously, hammered away at this stone and produced what could surely be called a smaller stone.


I eventually began to make noticeable progress. Success or failure felt equally likely at this point. After the ten thousandth hammer blow, my neighbors were voting for failure.


Eventually I did finish as you can see here.

The third image above above shows the setup I used while working in my previous apartment. I crafted a crude dust barrier from PVC tubing and plastic sheets you might normally use as a painter's drop sheet. The PVC barrier was a little taller than I am and when I worked, I arranged them around the opening to my open balcony and draped the plastic sheets over them and along the floor. My carving stand went in the middle on top of the plastic. Once everything including myself was inside the wrap around barrier, I closed it off except for the balcony. I also placed a fan on the floor blowing out through the balcony door. That kept any floating dust moving outside instead of into the apartment. In the third picture you can't see the fan nor the pumping techno music that's playing.

Remarkably it worked pretty well. I only had a little bit of dust outside the barrier, and I think that happened mostly when I took down the plastic sheets. I was surprised that I didn't actually get any complaints from the neighbors while I worked. I know they heard me because somebody commented on it when they saw me moving out. I did try to stop work before prime time. I'm sure that helped.

Here's a more complete picture of the barrier.


You still can't see the pumping techno...