April 6th, 2010 by Ron Branch
Booth-building series Click this link to read from the beginning post.
When I was hired on at Mercury Glass (I think it was about 10 years ago), Bob was wanting to bring his sandblasting operation indoors, and so once again the timing was good and I was set to the task of building another new booth. He already had great ideas on how it was going to work, but he left the details to me. By that point in time I had a pretty sizable wish-list of things I would want to build into the perfect booth, and he let me do most of it. It marked the first time I Read the rest of this entry »
dust, glass art, sandblast booth
April 4th, 2010 by Ron Branch
Two years ago when I started creating my home workspace I made a special nook in the office with the hope that someday I might be able to fill it with a very special tool, one that I have wanted for many years. It’s hard to believe it actually happened, the Summa has arrived! The importance of owning our own plotter became obvious over these first few months of working at home. As a glass etching studio perhaps we could have sustained ourselves without one, but as far as diversity of products and competitive pricing, the horizon is now significantly wider.
tools
March 30th, 2010 by Ron Branch
Booth-building series Click this link to read from the beginning post.
In 1997 Micky and I made our first attempt at fulfilling our dream of living in the Pacific North West. Without much of a plan, we rolled into town with our 3-year-old and all our stuff, moved into an apartment and started job-hunting. Looking back on it now, it seems like a crazy and impulsive move, but such was our passion about the beauty up north. Within a couple weeks I was fortunate enough to end up with a job at Read the rest of this entry »
glass art, moisture, sandblast booth, Vancouver Wa.
March 22nd, 2010 by Ron Branch
This is my fifth Paache of this type over the last eight or so years, so they last me a little over a year – not bad considering what I put them through. Its possible that the way I use it causes extra wear and tear – I’ll look into that with this one. It’s the best gun I’ve found so far. It’s not perfect, but it’s close. I’ll be breaking it in with a new freehand portrait technique, hopefully in the next few days. I’m still trying to decide whose face to do – I’m open to suggestions. I do know I would like it to be someone well-known, someone recognizable.
Paache, Sandblast, tools, Vancouver Wa.
March 21st, 2010 by Ron Branch
Sometimes simple projects can be more difficult than they look. One would assume in looking at the lines in this design that they are the simple combination of a line and an arc, but not so. The curve of the arc actually lessens to meet the line – more like an oval.
One of the more difficult tasks in sandblasting is shading large areas evenly. There are no guarantees that your sand will shoot with perfect consistency, in fact I can almost promise you it won’t. Nor is it possible to force the human body to perform with absolute machine like precision. Shadows in the booth can also deceive the blaster into thinking it looks perfect.
These are all reasons that being an adrenaline junky is a helpful personality trait in this business. The challenge in this project was to try to evenly blast the middle areas. Click on the thumbnail to see how it turned out.
door glass, Projects
March 15th, 2010 by Ron Branch
Booth-building series Click this link to read from the beginning post.
It was approximately 1995 – The new building was of block construction, was a rental, and although situated in an industrial area, had neighboring businesses to consider. These are common hurtles that often have to be overcome when building a sandblast booth in a commercial setting. There were also genuine construction issues to solve… what we came up with was not ideal – but it DID work … well sorta. Read the rest of this entry »
dust, filters, glass art, sandblast booth, Vancouver Wa.
March 13th, 2010 by Ron Branch
Took some photos of my little workshop last night. To check them out, click on the image to the left.
Construction is done for now. There is still plenty I would love to do to the place, such as putting in a ceiling, and doing something with the floor – but those things will have to wait for a while, I have actual glass jobs to do!
March 9th, 2010 by Ron Branch
Booth-building series Click this link to read from the beginning post.
Actually, in the beginning there was no booth. At the studio where I had first been employed as a glass artist, I had worked outdoors in a vacant lot. They had been doing it there for I don’t know how many years, and so it was like standing amongst blinding white dunes of silica. Thinking back on it has that same surreal quality as remembering that there was a time when people smoked aboard commercial airline flights or while shopping for groceries – just doesn’t seem real but it was, you know?
The other place where I was blasting back then was under a roof attached to an old shed, but still basically without walls. I came across this photo from 1987 that shows me working at night out behind a place I was renting in Chandler Arizona. I was also using the inside of the shed for building stained glass windows. As enjoyable as it can be to work outside, there are many disadvantages to deal with, such as the little gifts that cats leave for you in your sand.
The next time I was setting up, I decided Read the rest of this entry »
glass art, sandblast booth, Vancouver Wa.
March 9th, 2010 by Ron Branch
Often the search queries that bring people to the websites of sandblasters look something like this: “How to build a sandblast booth” Here is a sample from this week alone:
– “build a sand blast booth”
– “large sand blast booth”
– “pictures of sandblasting booths”
– “sandblast booth”
– “sandblasting booth for glass”
– “walk in sandblast booth”
– “walk in sandblasting booths”
If this is the type of question that has brought you here and even if this means that you are “the competition” – I am more than happy to share what I know so far. I think the first one I did was in 1988 or 89. Since then I’ve built five others, improving as I went along. I’ll start back at the beginning and recount the whole learning process, which is on-going I can assure you. There is always more to learn, so if anyone reading this has any tips or suggestions I would certainly appreciate them. I’m going to have to break this epic tale into multiple posts, I had know idea it was going to be so long. To pull them all together simply click on the category tag at the bottom “sandblast booth saga” or follow this link to the next post.
glass art, sandblast booth, Vancouver Wa.
Booth-building series Click this link to read from the beginning post.
