Lisa, Michael and I have been working on building more orbs. Lisa and I have been working on an aluminum orb with all the welds on the inside; we set it down next to the one with the welds on the outside and there was no question which shows off the cool lines of the orb better. Welding the inside is a tiny bit harder than the outside but totally worth it.

We set up and tacked hemisphere #3 (of 12) in place on Sunday on the jig. Yesterday I threw a few hours at the welds. Today I’m going to finish up the orb. Tonight Lisa and I will put hemisphere #4 on the jig. :-)

I welded until I ran out of argon for the TIG last night so I’ll be filling that up today.

————————————————–

On a side note, the Box Shop has been abuzz with activity. The Serpent Mother has been being polished up for her trip to the Fire Arts Festival and then Robodock. She’s got to fit in a 40′ shipping container for her trip to Amsterdam. That container is only 60% the size of the truck she took to Burning Man in 2006!

update 6-28-07: Steve Monahan gave me a hand last night welding the top and bottom of hemisphere 4. He’s got great technique. Hemisphere 3 still needs some love because of my crappy technique.

We are going to try and weld just the interiors of the orbs. That does a great job of preserving the clean lines. We’ll see if that makes them strong enough.

Photo: That’s Lisa doing some finish work on hemisphere #3.