Miles to go before we sleep.

We're exhausted...we're from out of town...it's really late...

After searching everywhere we could think of that was open at that hour, we settled for a temporary fix. Somewhere there are some little nuts that fit our little screws (misplaced in the rush to deadline), but tonight we must smash nuts to fit.

So we can go home...and fall into our nice soft beds...at last...aah.

Yes, that's a forklift.

We had to bring our own forklift to unload the bass. Those things are REALLY HEAVY! But we got everything unloaded and put in place. Even distant relatives (in miles only) came to see us and the bass, of course. After it was strung, we were off and running again. designerGina arrives at Eppley tonight! We are all anxious to see her.

The deadline cometh...

...and it passeth us by. As I said in an earlier post, deadines and I have never been friends and it really doesn't seem to matter if I start early or late. Even this self imposed deadline was unfriendly. But I called the Rockbrook officials and they agreed to wait an hour later than they had planned for me. This gave us time to finish up, pack up and head out!



And I think my GREAT assistant has GREAT legs, too.

Makin' music

The notes are clamped on and it's lookin' good...but looks can be deceiving.

The brass notes went on without a hitch. Then... it was time to attach the crystal notes. Not so easy. There is a BIG difference between heating copper tubing and heating copper foil when soldering! Duh!

It was a huge challenge to get the tube hot enough to melt the solder and get the solder to stick to the note, too. Of course, it did NOT help that we were bumping deadline and needed to be on the road to Rockbrook! STRESS!!!

Had I had more experience with glass, I would have known to attach wire hooks to the note and just BRAISE the hooks to the tubing like I had braised the brass notes to the tubing. Learning curve. Next time I'll know better!

Staff problems

After a lot of time and bending along with some kinking and unkinking (!#$&!!!); I decided it was time to add the measure bars...which in turn made the bending much easier. Yay!

I ended up cutting the floppy part of the staff off at the top. I was trying to keep it under hieght requirements and it kept kinking. Plus it LOOKED a lot better!

We're stuck now!

The epoxy has set. The copper and bass are mounted in stone.

It will be interesting to see how easy/hard it will be to get the copper music staff to bend in all the right directions. However, the bass is practically finished. The fingerboard needs to be painted black and notes attached. But the tuning machine will be installed and strings strung on site.

Holy rock, Batman!

Or is that holey rock... We drilled holes in the rock God gave us about the time the new batman movie came out :) And no, we still haven't seen the movie but, it's on our list of things to do. The kids, of course, have all seen it (the movie AND the rock).

Drilling was easier than we thought, but we still wrecked a few bits along the way. Have I mentioned my GREAT assistant? And my woosie muscles?

Line 'em up!

Measure, string, measure, tack, measure... you get the idea :)

We don't want the strings to be falling off the bridge! So we lined everything up... fingerboard, bridge, end pin. And don't forget the ratios... nut to bridge, bridge to tailpiece. I usually just kept my measuring tape around my neck throughout most of the project.

Nice scroll!

And get a load of that box! All the angles just right. And believe me there were a lot of angles. But, it's coming together! Have I mentioned my GREAT assistant?

Deadlines!

!#$&@!!! ...Deadlines and I have never been friends. It doesn't matter how early I start, I still need just one more day or just five minutes more or... you know the story. Anyway, sorry I have not been posting here lately. The deadline came and I needed just three more hours :)

I will try to catch up the blog today!