6-27-08

6-27-08
12:00-4:00
Another day of grinding fun! We unloaded and reloaded the tumbler for the first time. It’s basically a larger scale version of the studio’s tumbler. That was jazzy. Then we went on to grinding the scale off the assembled tabletop clocks. We have been cutting and grinding the pieces for said clocks since day one so it was nice to see them put together, The weld marks, unfortunately, are at some inconvenient places and grinding these took quite a while. I hate to be a downer, but it seems I can’t show all of you pictures of us welding because the light may kill my camera so you’ll have to imagine the shinny green light. Picture our oxy-acetylene torches times 100. Dave showed us more with welding as well. We learned what not to do when welding different thicknesses of metal. Mainly, don’t be a weenie. I finally got a delightful pool of metallic goodness and connected it to the thinner piece sans weenie-ness. Hooray molten metal!

6-25-08

6-25-08
1:15-3:45
Today we learned the process for grinding the wall sconces on a different mounted grinder. It was challenging until you get the hang of it. That or grind the fingertips off your gloves, whichever comes first. I started out doing that and Suzi worked on texturing the pendulums for one of the clocks in production. We swapped jobs after a while and let me tell you, going from giant spinning grinder of death to itsy bitsy pendulums was…interesting. We did get a lot done and hopefully I have mastered the grind-without-flinging-the-sconce-across-the-room-method. I’m a big fan of that method.

6-24-08

6-24-08
1-4:15
Finished grinding all the bars today with the hand-held sander, Yeaaah! We also finished up the longer ¼” bars on the belt sander. Julie gave us a demo on the hydraulic press used to bend the steel. It looks hella-cool. And then! WELDING DEMO!

<- Dave, out welding sensei
Dave showed us the basics on tack welding with the TIG welder. It was super! I then practiced a spot weld and promptly stuck the tip to the steel. My bad. Even though Suzi and I got the tip stuck a couple of times we:
A. Didn’t shock ourselves
B. Looked amazing in the welding masks.

6-23-08

6-23-08
1:15-4:15
Today we spent most of the day cutting and grinding pieces for orders. We used the belt sander to apply texture to some of the bars. We also sampled Julie’s cupcakes. They were fantastic and I think cupcakes and steel work should always be paired together!

Internship Day 3

6-18-08
12:00 - 4:00
Julie demonstrated decorative grinding on the steel bars for the tabletop clock today as well as sanding cut pipe.
<--- I did that for most of the day.




Suzi and I also chopped pieces for several production orders including a wall vase and mirror.
I worked mainly on the band saw cutting round pipe and grinding while it cut.
We sanded the edges and cleaned up the majority of the pieces for Monday

Internship Day 2

6-13-08
11:00-3:15
Today we started with what we learned on Tuesday by finishing up grinding the fire scale marks off the steel bars. Then Ken and Julie showed us how to use the equipment to cut large steel tube. We used a power saw to cut steel bars for another style of clock that they have in production that was originally designed by a former intern from Towson University. The filing of different products and how to read the instructions was demonstrated and we went to work on cutting and cleaning all the pieces to make ten of the small clocks. I personally was a big fan of cutting the bars simply because there is a lot of flying sparks involved. Fire makes me happy. Finally, we finished all the clocks up from the previous workday and had all the pieces we cut today cleaned and ready to go for the next step.

Internship Day One

6-10-08
12:30-4:00
Well, I can’t feel my arm so Julie wasn’t lying about this internship being hard work! Today was Suzi and my first day at Girardini Design and it was fantastic! Julie and Ken are so nice and believe it or not I love the work we’re doing. Today we learned how to grind and sand using pneumatic tools. We learned how to clean the steel bars before working with them, We finished the steel clock structures that the Girardinis sell and attempted the finish for the clock faces. Okay, so the finish on the faces are a little more difficult than the rest but we still had a blast. Hopefully we won’t cause too much damage in the learning process! The clock structures are steel rods welded together. We spent the time cleaning up the ends of the rods and removing fire scale from the welding process. There is definitely a method involved and I quickly learned what not to do and what works best. I feel like Suzi and I have already learned a lot of information and I can’t wait for tomorrow!

6-11-08
No work today because of a power outage due to the storm. Sniff, I am sad.