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.

Monday 6 October 2014

Toronto Nuit Blanche!

Our last build was for Toronto's Scotiabank Nuit Blanche art festival, which happened this past weekend. Our involvement was with the CanAmerican Energy Arts Team.

Here's the blurb:
Our portion was to paint the two huge tanks and fabricate a mock pipeline between the 2 of them. An FX team was also hired to load one of the tanks with an enviro-friendly "crude oil". This crude oil would then blow out a pipe and leak completely into the fountain at Nathan Philips Square. Turning the water into basically an environmental disaster! Just the way I like it :)
The first step was fabricating the pipe work that joins the 2 tanks.
We went with 3, 12" waxed sonotubes, cut down to 7 feet each . But to avoid any of the cardboard look, and to resist the elements for the duration of the install, we wrapped the tubes with .030" sheet styrene. This gave us a nice paintable surface as well.
It's amazing what a sheet of styrene can do!
The next step was to cut out the flanges. It was at the drawing stage that I realized that all 3 of the 12" pipes varied dramatically in size. I knew they would vary, but hadn't counted on a total of 1.125" between them! So all the flanges had offset holes cut into them. Glad I measured all 3!
I also cut the many bolt heads for the flanges on our little Techno. These were cut from 1/2" black pvc, and glued on with CA glue.
With the fake bolt heads glued on, and the flanges all test fit, I scribed a line that would become the "pipe joint"

With all the flanges done, it was a quick styrene scuffing, and time to roll on the paint!
8)
JWO










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  1. lgs19676 October 2014 at 20:34

    Dear Jamie,

    Thanks so much for your amazing work -- the event was huge success! Here's one story about it: http://buffalo.com/2014/10/05/featured/10-highlights-nuit-blanche/

    Might it be possible to get some of these images for our archive?

    Many thanks again,

    Critical Art Ensemble

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