Bit by Bit

Started working on the rib extensions for the top peaks. I'm using some cheap 1x2s cut to about 15". There will be about 8" of overlap with the metal ribs. I'm testing it with pine but will likely move up to something better if it works.

I want to not only work out how much to extend the frame but also testing if the ribs can handle the extra weight. Once the extension is determined I can go about patterning the fabric for the umbrella.

So far slotting the pine has been a pain. The Dremel wants to follow the heavy grain in the wood. I'll need to switch to the router and make a jig.

Return to the umbrella

Well this project got bumped from the Tiki Invasion time-line for the Inlatable Moai project. Today as I was working on far more important stuff, my computer pointed out that I hadn't charged my mouse lately. So in my mouse-charging downtime I put in a bit of effort on this project.

Next step is to start patterning the umbrella panels. Now, I could use my mighty geometry skills to work out all of the angles but sadly I left those in high school. So my solution is to isolate the movement of the spines and simply measure distances.

Here is a photo of the cotton twill tape used to set the distance between the spines.


Once I get that where I like it I can start looking at deciding how much overhang I want.

WTF?

Ok, it occurs to me that I have been a bit vague about this phase of the Fez-o-rama booth.

If you scroll way the hell down to the beginning of this blog you will see TofuJoe's excellent idea for the new booth. Now while I do plan to one day implement this, it will have to wait until I get my hands on a rolling mill to produce the rings needed. In the mean time I had been trying to work out how to make the top open like an umbrella. Ease of set-up/strike is very important to our booth designs.

Then one day I read a Humu Kon Tiki blog about a Tiki Central post by Sabu The Coconut Boy regarding the 1962 Hawaiian Pavilion at the Seattle World's Fair. (gotta love the cyclical world we live in)I don't know what it is about that roof but it has haunted me since seeing this picture.

So here is the idea. Find an umbrella to mod to imply this roof line. Well I couldn't find an umbrella with 12 spines (what we determined to be the minimum needed) so the next thought was to take two umbrellas with 6 spines and meld them together. One trip to Big Lots later and I was the proud owner of two mod-able umbrellas.

First Joe and I broke them down and worked out how to do the mods. Luckily the construction was quite simple. Plastic housings and tie wire. So Joe cut 6 more grooves into the cap.
You can see one of the handmade cutouts in the center of the photo.

We assembled both of the lower sliders onto one pole to allow us a bit of adjustment if needed.

To create the up/down of the original roof we needed to move the pivot of the upper set of spines. We simply drilled out the rivets and moved the hole back on the spines.
Finally here is a shot of the frame open
and one closed. As you can see we would need to make a few more cuts to allow the frame to close more but it works as it is.

So there you go, all caught up now.

Frankenbrella

Work continues on the new addition to the Fez-o-rama booth. The Umbella frames have been dismantled and are currently being assembled into a Frankenbrella! Now I just need to pick up some hardware to replace the rivets we drilled out.

Update

The exploratory surgery on the first umbrella has begun but not too far.

I'm afraid this project may get sidelined as many things have come up that need my attention. Worse case senario we roll out the current version of the booth with a tarp for shade. Let's hope for the best.

Umberellas!

Well I picked up two market umbrellas to warp into one Frankenbrella. I'll take some photos of the experiment.

Mission Tiki expansion

Well, we have our next public event: Mission TIki Drive-in http://tikiinvasion.com/
This time we will be outside. We may actually attempt to build the rest of the booth before then.

We'll have to add:

• 4 more cases
  
• curtains to hide storage
  
• a center post for the umbrella like roof.

We've even talked about getting some floor mats to lessen fatigue for the sales staff (I try to stay out of their way when they are working)

Home Again

We're back and truth be told the booth worked out great. I'm really happy with how it packs up. The backdrop worked out great. Lighting was a bit spotty but that was taken care of by a mad dash to Target.

I'm actually ready to get back to work on it... Just over two months until the Mission Tiki event!

...

Retro-active posting!

Yes. Despite not having posted about it, Sunday did indeed occur. No need to throw away your calendars, they still work.

Most efforts were spent on finishing(?) touches on the sign and working on product. Now that we are in fact only a few days out on this shindig let's look at where we stand.

Booth

• needs to be packed -never made any cases for the tops but they should be ok this time.
• there are still a few things that could be tweaked but I have no time or energy for it now.
• Lighting - I have no idea if Joe will have something for this but we will have at least Troy's light.

Sign

• need to fill the bases with cement or something
• perhaps a few more finishing touches on the aging if there is opportunity

Everything else has come together pretty well. Most of the product is ready to go and while i will be working right up to the last moment, that is really no shock.

Saturday

While I spent the day working on product with the help of Maya, Caroline and Natalie,

Joe was busy working out how to mount the Fez-o-rama sign for the booth. With Ikabod's help it all went together rather easily.

Tomorrow we will start the finishing touches on the sign to make it look all neglected.

Monday

The Sign got its first coat of color today:
(picture to be added as soon as I take one)
The idea is to make it look like a worn-out roadside attraction sign.

The tricky part here is to make it look like it was painted by the un-skilled without making it actually look like it was painted by the un-skilled. This is totally against what I usually do. I'm usually trying to make myself look like I know what I'm doing...

Anyway, the plan is to distress to colors so they look like they've been in the sun and dirt for years, all while not paying for the right paints.

Sunday!

While we had many people over working on product and the Cult booth, a bit was done for the Fez-o-rama booth.

The signage had one more sanding pass and the front side got it's first coat of base paint. Many thanks to Caroline, Troy and Cannibal for working on that.

12 days and counting

Actually little was done on the Fez-o-rama booth today. Most of the focus was on the Cult of the Eye projects. We had the blessing of Tofujoe traveling from Oakland for the day to oversee the disassembly of the Tiki Booth and prep for the last of the work needed on that.

I was focused on CotE Fezzes, finally finishing the new version of the PontiFez for Stickmann.

1st Sunday after the 1st Full Moon after the Spring Equinox

Well after getting a later start due to having breakfast with my lovely wife, my mother and my grandfather; we went back to work on the signage.

Here you can see some more shaping done with a knife and Dremel then later, sanding blocks.
After that we attempted to fill in gaps with expanding foam. It worked fairly well but not perfectly. I'm sure there is a learning curve here but we have no time for that.


Tomorrow I will fill in the massive gap on the backside with foam and next week we will hopefully have this in paint.

Saturday

Embroideries continue! On the booth side of things Troy and my Mom came over to work on a sign for the booth. What started as a broken windsurfing board is slowly being hacked into a sign.

Troy worked up the design before we started at it with kitchen knifes.


Early testing showed that a dremmel works great for carving foam but makes an incredible mess!

Tomorrow we will do some more work on this.

Monday

Went in search of stuff for the booth. Picked up raffia table skirting to use on either the front counter or as camoflage for product in the back.

I did find one lamp that might work for a base for the backdrop but I'll wait to see what Joe finds.

More work on product today as well.

Sunday

Today's Players: Maya, Troy, Joe, Tiny and Irk.

Joe started right in with working up possibilities for the booth's backdrop. I was damned impressed with his use of crap laying about my home.

He also spent some time considering gels for the counter's underlight.

Tiny returned to work on skulls with Troy pulling multiple duty on Shambooâ„¢ (Irk is to be credited with that trademarked name) Glasswares and skulls.


Maya was working on Glassware and paintings.


Irk was hard at work on the new sculptures for the Tiki booth.


I was running between embroideries, vinyl and construction.

It was a very productive day!

Saturday

Despite having the Long Beach Grand Prix going on Stick and Irk still traveled down to get some work done.

I wrapped the three box liners in fabric before anyone arrived.

Troy and I backed the bamboo with black fabric so now it looks much better!

Irk's work on the Tiki Booth looks spectacular! I'll let him post about that.

The rest of the day was spent on product work.

Mid-week Review

Today is the one month mark for Tiki Oasis. Deadlines are looming!

Here is where we stand (in a nutshell)

• Front Counter
  
  • Plexi Tops -done
    
  • MDF Tops -done as black
    
  • Legs -done
    
  • Frontage
    
    • need to back bamboo with fabric
      
    • possibly add grass skirting to lower edge
    
    
  • Curtains -add to the back side to hide storage
    
  • Skull Displays
    
    • Skulls -need to be decorated and sealed
      
    • Sambooâ„¢ Poles -need to be faux-finished and sealed
  
  
  
• Lighting -we have three possibilities to explore
  
  • LED lighting with battery power
    
  • Backlight salvaged from a flatscreen
    
  • decorative Ikea lighting.
  
  
  
• Backdrop -possible ideas need to be compared to the limited time we have left.
  
• Packing -create bags and totes for all of the bits so we don't lose anything.

My focus is now on the product so less and less attention is left for the booth needs.

32 days and counting

Today's players: Troy, Mike, Irk and Maya.

Assembled the booth for a final look. The tops were painted black just for the time being but they look so nice I may have to leave them black.

Trimmed the edge of the bamboo. I didn't care for this uniform wave so I went for a more random edge not in the photo. You can also see the foam lining of the bamboo on the inside. This iritates me. I think I will remove that and glue black fabric on the bamboo.

We remade the shelf for the cut-out box and covered it with fabric.

Troy layed out a template to do the same for the bottoms of the plexi cases.

I spent a good deal of the day working on the new designs for this year. Graphics are done so I just need to create the cut files and then engineer the embroideries.

Maya and Mike sorted all of the glassware and assigned the designs. This is a big help for me because I usually go into vapor lock if I have do decide all of these things on my own.

Paint!

No pictures today... not much to look at really.

Troy put second coat on the cabinets... I re-did the base coats on the "Shamboo"

Mostly I worked on new designs and embroidery.

Sunday!!!

Lots done already.
Today's cast: Joe, Tiny, Ikabod, Irk, Troy and me... your host.

The cabinets got more paint


The legs got primed, sanded and painted.
Here you can see the metal pipes being turned into "Shamboo­"©
After this first coat dries I'll do a little more smoothing and more paint to improve the look.

Tiny has finished putting the base colors on the skulls and is now marking out the tribal designs that Troy has come up with.

We're starting to slow down as we are really feeling the lack of sleep now. That's what we get for having fun on Saturday nights.

Photoless Saturday -now with photo!

Forgot to take pictures so just the one today.

Troy came over and we moved a good deal forward.

• All of the plexi was trimmed and flame polished.
  
• Almost all of the hardware was installed.
  
• Paint started on the cabinets and will continue today.

Today I'll be doing more paint and sculpting the bamboo rods for the skull displays.

Assembly

Well Joe and I put in a rather productive day today. It started with Joe rattling me out of bed and ended a few minutes ago at 8:30pm.

The booth went from test fit to final fit on most of the pieces. All of the tops have been pegged to fit the sides.

The bamboo mat is now mounted with hardware

Still need to trim the bottom.

The pipes have begun to be mounted on the back edge

to support the skulls for displaying fezzes.


Tomorrow I will pick up a few bits of missing hardware and do a bit of sanding and shaping on the MDF before paint.

Frontage

Well it could have gone worse...

I decided to go for a wavy edge and couldn't decide if it should be random or even.

Ultimately I just started cutting with a Rotozip.

Unfortunately only after trying to clean up the edge did I discover that I could have just used scissors.

Here is a test fit of the front.

I still need to work out the seam and trim the bottom to match. That and figure out how it all goes together when the tape comes off.

The problem with working alone is you can't constantly bounce ideas off of others... and you can't blame them for the screw-ups.

Midweek Update

Well it is the middle of the week and far less has gotten done so far than I would have liked.

Here you can see what was done on Sunday.

We cut out a few areas for plexi to fit in. I like the effect and am now considering doing another section like it.

I have installed all of the legs and test fitted all of the sections.

I has a good height and is rather sturdy once I started adding the hardware to bolt it together.

The bamboo mat was purchased for the front. It needs to be cut down the middle to wrap around.

We are getting closer and closer to paint.

Weekend Four?

Whew, not much sleep to be had. Saturday was our annual Waffles of the Damned event. A great time was had and little work was done.

On Sunday we managed to get some stuff done on what little sleep was had.

Here you can see the sides going on the bases.

We used door hinges because they were free.


Sadly I didn't take any shots of our routing out designs in one of the tops but I can shoot the aftermath.

Monday

Worked in a bit more progress yesterday. 4 of the 6 bases now have folding sides. Had to stop working to sit in on a Skype meeting. I plan to get the hardware on prior to the weekend work sessions. This way we can focus on dealing with the next set of design problems.

Such as:

• Can we get away with staggering the legs or do we need each table to be able stand on its own.
  
• I found bamboo matting that could be used to front the booth but we would either need to float it a few inches above the ground or buy twice as much matting to go all the way to the floor.
  
• Should we square the sides with blocks when we bolt the sections together to make them stronger?
  
• How do we want to light the display boxes? Big Lots has a set of 3 flourescent lights that can be plugged in series.

I'll post a few photos of where we're at when I get a chance.

Sunday Re-cap

Yesterday was a very productive follow-up to Saturday.

All of the sides were finish cut and beveled and such.

Hinge placement was worked out and channels were routed into the bases and sides.

Joe spent the day trimming down screws so we would get a full bite out of the 1/2" MDF.


Let's take a moment to discuss something very important to the process:

Safety
Always wear the appropriate protection when going about this sort of creativity. Note the wireless headphones to protect oneself from the crushing boredom of silence.

Also we should point out that it is a good idea to wear a red shirt. That way if -god forbid- you were to expire due to a power tool event, the authorities would immediately recognize that you were not in charge of this "away mission" and would continue to look for the responsible party.

Saturday Sawdust Factory

Cutting is going well.

The plexi has been cut and sanded:

• First the rough cut with the circular saw
  
  
• The three sheets stacked with one of the tops as a template. Turns out the secret is double sided tape.
  
• I trimmed the edges with a router using a tracing bit and then did a little sanding. Later the edges will be flame polished.
  

Two new bases have been cut to replace the ones that look like they were done by a monkey... or me.


All of the angles have been cut on the back end of the sides. Just need to cut length and adjust height for the different tops.

There is a good chance I'll be on to hinges and legs tomorrow!