Results day at Chelsea...

The finished arrangement won a silver medal

Meccano wins Silver at Chelsea!

Tuesday morning and it is results day. This is what it is all about. Did Sue and Pat get a medal? YES! all the hard work paid off and the flower arranging duo scooped a silver. OK it's not a gold but it is only Sue's second time and she won a silver medal last year so we are all delighted here.  Now all we have to do is go and recover it tomorrow evening in time for the people doing the second round of arrangements to get their gear in and build up overnight tomorrow for a new display for Thursday through to Saturday. I can now start thinking about other things and get back to the real stuff in the workshop.

Ralph

Chelsea flower show pictures from last night...

The previous post was sent from my not so SmartPhone while sitting in the cab of the trusty Transit at 1.30am. Sue and her partner in crime (Pat) were busy in the Floral Design marquee stuffing flowers and foliage into big blocks of oasis atop lengths of soil stack!

The painted crown frame is ready for decorating

Before we go any further a bit of a recap is in order. Back tracking a bout 12 hours to Sunday lunchtime and all hell is breaking out at Laughton Towers. With only hours to go things are getting a bit fought - Bad tempered me? Never! Adding to the blog was the last thing on my mind I was off up the workshop finishing the rest of my chores! By this the crown has made its way to the kitchen table and Sue is hard at work sticking soya bean seeds around the crown, to simulate the gold beads, and building the top piece of the crown from an old plastic Christmas decoration, more cereal packet card and soya beans - this is getting more like Blue Peter every day! After a spray with gold paint it is ready for decoration and ready for filling with flowers. As well as building the framework for the crown, the support for the flower arrangements had to be designed and built. That is where I was all afternoon. By about 9pm we were loading the Van and about to set off for Chelsea.

I recognise that van...

As I am only the unpaid servant, I am not allowed to help with the build as once I have done all the fetching and carying the rest of my night is spent ( with an itermission driving back to Laughton Towers to collect the stuff that got left behind - Dont ask!) sitting in the Transit counting the stitches in the headlining. I did sneek out and take a few night shots for a bit of fun. No tripod makes the composition interesting to say the least. So as I mentioned last night, here are a few photographs taken during the build up and on the show ground at night...

This picture of Diarmuid Gavin's controversial garden at night look as
if it is on fire. In fact it is lit and those 'flames' are trees. Because the shot was
taken in darkness the camera has overexposed the lit sections of the trees

This has to be my favourite picture of the night, a slug's-eye view of the main trader's avenue

Sue and Pat hard at work in the early hours of Monday morning...
Now you know what the pipes were for I was cutting a few days ago

Health and safety gone made everybody in the marquee must wear High-Vis gear!

That was it all finished and time to go home. grab a couple of hours sleep and back again for, this time on foot for a look around on Press day. I will post a couple of pictures tomorrow and then it will be back to 'normal service' the workshop. 

Ralph.

Build up night at Chelsea Flower Show

Just a short post from the Chelsea flower show ground. Tapping this out on my phone while sitting in the van while Sue and her mate build the arrangement. I'm not allowed to help with the build as only two can do it. Should be out of here by sun up. I will post some pictures tomorrow - later today! - when we get home.

Ralph.

Cardboard, string, PVA, UHU... and QR code

This crown is starting to take over. What started off as a simple little job has become the most demanding part of this whole venture. So it is yet another post following the progress of this crown. Today I have been covering up the Meccano using strips of cardboard fixed to the frame. Again a bit of a learning curve here. First attempts using the glue gun cleared the workshop of its crew of resident spiders and insects as the air turned blue as the hot glue made its way through the holes in the Meccano depositing itself on my now rather sensitive digits. At times like this, the best thing to do is to light up a cigarette and go for a wander around the grounds of Laughton Towers. This would be a good plan if, A; it wasn't chucking it down with rain and B; I don't smoke!

Adding the 'rope' trim. Note the Meccano cardboard scraps!

The glue gun was cosigned to its place on the racking, with a rather firm hand, and it was out with my tube of UHU (bought from the local pound shop) that is inscribed in four different languages" The All Purpose Adhesive". I usually avoid this stuff as it strings like mad, turning the project into something resembling a spiders web. It does have one big advantage - it ain't hot! I was pleasantly surprised how easy it is to use. Yes it does string a bit bit it dries quickly and makes a very good bond between the cardboard and metal. Pulling the card over the edge of the bench breaks the grain and makes the card much more malleable preventing any spring back around the curved surfaces. To keep it in the family, some of the card used is also Meccano, cut from discarded modern packaging.

For the gold 'rope that trims the edges of the crown, a length of string was soaked in PVA and left to dry before being stuck in place using, my now found fried, UHU. This looks the part and the pre-gluing makes it very easy to work with.

Cardboard crown!

 Next job is to cut the crosses and fleur-de-lis that adorn the rim of the crown. Again these are cut from card. One of each is cut first and this is used as a pattern for the others. After all four have been cut they will be laminated onto more card, to increase the strength, a then when the glue has cured the will need to be re-profiled.

QR codes are everywhere...

QR Code

My old SmartPhone can read QR Code

Between batches of cutting and waiting for glue to dry I decided to sort out something that has been bothering me for a while now. Have you ever wondered what those funny square blocks of dots that seem to be everywhere are? Well, they are QR (Quick Recognition) code. To save repeating everything here, just Google 'QR Code' and you will find all sorts of information and free QR generators to make your own code. These codes can be read by any SmartPhone - even my old Nokia - once you have downloaded a free app.


So now you can get to our website either by clicking on the link here: www.my-meccano.co.uk or by pointing your SmartPhone at the lump of QR code above. When you get to our website you should be able to do the same thing by pointing your SmartPhone at the code on the Home page and jump back to the workshop blog.

Isn't technology wonderful... Back to the cardboard!


Ralph.

Chelsea crown...

As I said yesterday a few modifications are needed to make this crown work. first the three bolt heads on the curved sections need to be removed as they will be in the way when the frame is over-laminated with card. The bolts, along with their nuts, are holding a 3-hole strip across the bent strips holding everything together. my first thought was to remove the bolts and strips, and re-fit them with a liberal coating of super glue. I though I would be able to remove the bolts after a time and the glue would hold the strips in place. Well that was a disaster. Wire through the holes and twisted to hold the strips together did sort of work but was still not perfect. Sue had given me some stiff mesh material to act as a backing for repairing the spine of an old Stamp catalogue. Strips of this stuff stuck in place with a glue gun did the job.

 

While the super glue was drying during my first attempt at holding the bent strips together I needed to add an extension to the frame so the main structure was not sitting on the fury bit (technical term) around the bottom. When it was finished  a rummage around the potting shed turned up a saucer of the correct diameter to hold the floral foam. The funny spiky looking things are called 'Frogs' and are used to secure the afore mentioned foam.

Cutting the pipe (outside the workshop)

Between messing around with the crown, I am also building the main support for the arrangement. The area we have to fill is 6ft wide, 6ft 6in high and 4ft deep. To achieve this some sort of sturdy structure is required. This year we have opted for using plastic domestic soil stack. This is made from ABS and is available in black and light grey. The pipe will be cut into various lengths and will be set into a sub-base made from MDF, standing 4 inches high above the provided base and inset by a foot from the left, right and front. This involves cutting the 100mm diameter plastic soil stack to length. Cutting pipe nice and square can be a problem, especially the larger diameter material. The following is a method I have used successfully several times before. The first job is marking up. 

As the pipe is 10ft long and it is a nice day, it is out with the tarpaulin and onto the lawn. Marking up the pipe is best done using a wide piece of paper wrapped around the pipe as a guide. I always have a roll of lining paper 'in stock' in the workshop, it has many uses and this is one of them. Position the edge of the paper where the cut is to be made and using a permanent marker follow the edge of the paper around the pipe with the pen. don't worry about how neat the line is so long as the marker is touching the end of the paper

 

Slide the paper back to reveal a nice smooth line to follow and make the cut using a hard point saw. If you are not confident of cutting straight through and being able to follow the line, just work your way round the pipe cutting shallow cuts following the line. The result will be a nice square cut. The rough end can be cleaned up with abrasive paper. 

Now I have a short sample of pipe I can now set up the router to cut the holes in the MDF - Tomorrow methinks!

Ralph.

Meccano at Chelsea

It is that time of year again. The house is filling with flowers, the van gets it's temporary bucket racks fitted and yours truly is roped into building all sorts of weird things from drainage pipes MDF and this year Meccano! Yes, it is build up time for the Chelsea Flower Show again and this year as part of a large flower arrangement Sue needed to make a crown, not just any crown but the Edwards Crown used in the coronation of QE II. So it was out to the workshop where we have a 'small' stock of tatty Meccano awaiting refurbishment. Out with the bending machine, rolling bars, hammers and dollies. And here it is in the making.

The crown takes shape. The Meccano-made bender needed a bit of help

Once the main frame was completed it was given a coat of Würth Zinc Spray (Brilliant stuff!) that dries in minutes. Now we can see the real shape of the crown. After some more discussion this evening it looks like we need to add some more framework and maybe dig out the super glue and rivets! Before you all start, no Meccano will be harmed in this exercise as it will be reclaimed, stripped and straightened after the show is over. I will post some more on the crown tomorrow.

The crown is given a coat of Zinc Spray

Tomorrow I will be routing some holes in MDF, cutting 100mm pipe and building the base for the arrangement. So come back tomorrow and see how I get on.

Ralph.

Artex - Yes you can still get it!

Workshop time was foreshortened, here at Laughton Towers this week, by a trip to Ironbridge last weekend to attend Meccanuity 12 one of the bigger Meccano shows. If you want to see want we got up to and a huge selection of photos of the show go and check it out on our Meccano website HERE. We decided to stay an extra night after the show meaning we did not get back to base until late on Tuesday. So it was a three day week and it is Friday already!  

The messy bit

 So it is back to the workshop and time to play with that big bag of Artex that followed me home last week. In the 'old days' Artex was a pain to use having to mix it with hot water and then let it cool down before it could be used. The modern stuff can be used with any temperature of water between 10ºC and 40ºC No matter how hard I try, I can always be relied upon to get the stuff everywhere. One of the big advantages of Artex is that while it is still soft it washes off much easier than plaster of Paris or good old parrot stuffing (Polyfiller - get it?) Mix the Artex by adding the powder to clean water until it is the constancy of double cream.

That's enough Artex for one day, now it just has to sit there to go solid

Leave it to stand - it will be fine for a good hour or two - while some more of the kitchen wipes are cut up into squares. these are then dipped into the liquid Artex  and applied to the previously constructed layer which, is now bone dry and tight as a drum. layer it on until the landscape has bee covered. while it is still wet apply more Artex using a brush until the whole are has been covered. The damp will re-activate the PVA, making a very secure bond once it has all dried thoroughly. This first stage of application may take up to 48 hours to dry out thoroughly. More on this next week.

Ralph.