This ought to be a cheap trick, but it isn't. The marble still cost me over £1,200.
You cut a sheet of marble into 5 bits, chamfer 8 of the edges into mitres, glue it together with reinforced corners, then once you put the lid on you appear to have a massive block of solid marble. Gedditt?
I was going to fill it with polyurethane foam so it could be lifted from the top (with an extra bit of metalwork) but the technical department lied to me on the phone. 750 millilitres would, she said, expand to 60 times its volume when curing.
16? I asked. No, six zero, she replied. Someone was lying. A large can covered just half of the base about 2 inches high. It would have taken about 20 cans to get anywhere near the top. The cans are about £10 each.
How many times during your very long life have you read the side of a spray paint can, looked at the claimed coverage in terms of square metres or yards, and thought to yourself - 'Nah. Bollocks. I don't believe it.' ?
The foam can gave no indication of final volume and I believed the technical department. I could have finished that block last week.
I take it chamfer is like bevel? I am not familiar with the word. Perhaps she was expecting you to be working with the expansion foam under water.
ReplyDeleteYes. Bevel. Under water?
DeleteIt expands in wet more. Or damp.
DeleteYou know how things do.
DeleteNot 60 times though!
DeleteNo.
DeleteI was saying it with humour, not seriously.
DeleteIt looks so tidy on the inside! There must be a reason you don't just flip it over like a box and keep the hollow hidden.
ReplyDeleteIt hasn't got the top on yet!
DeleteOh, I thought the fifth face was on the bottom. Which of course is a waste of good $$
DeleteI presume your chamfers were 100% perfect. Quite a feat!
ReplyDeleteSo long as they are less than 45 degrees they are tight at the edges.
DeleteWhat will it be for ? XXXX
ReplyDeleteIt's a plinth.
DeleteVery neatly assembled is it a plinth ?
ReplyDeleteIt will be.
Deletehaving nearly had a nervous breakdown working out how to return an unwanted pair of shoes just now (finally succeeded)your post to day just makes my brain hurt!
ReplyDeleteSorry Weave.
DeleteIt is going to be a very expensive object - whatever is it for?
ReplyDeleteA sort of statue.
DeleteSorry, Tom - it's all double Dutch to me. (But it sounds more like the old "Gulden" than the new "Euros": expensive).
ReplyDeleteOr it sounds like "To good to be true" or "There is no free lunch" - but that is only what my instinct says, as my ratio does not understand the problem :-)
You've lost me too.
DeleteI guess I would be back on the phone to the technical department's supervisor. Just to make myself feel better from delivering my opinion.
ReplyDeleteI didn't even believe 16 times, let alone 60. I haven't got the energy for a return call.
Delete