CW2. Painting and finishing touches.

This week’s progress report has seen me painting the letters, and inlaying the brass acorns. Why paint those beautiful letters I hear you ask?

Painting!

Well, when the sunlight falls across v inscribed letters they stand out really nicely, but this is England and on a dull day in November the contrast can be a little too low to reveal the letters at their best. So I have painted them the same colour as the stone, but a tone darker than the stone when it is dry and a tone lighter than the stone when it’s wet, adding just enough contrast to help with legibility when the light is rubbish. The paint is made by the German manufacturer Keim, and it is micro-porous, very hard wearing and has a sympathetic mat finish. This sensitive choice of colour should weather sympathetically as the marker ages too. A big thank you to Theresa Llewellyn who helped me paint 3 coats into 409 letters, thus keeping me sane!

Finally finished and ready to go.

The Marker is finished and ready for installation on Thursday. I don’t feel like I can fully relax until it is safely installed. I am looking forward to seeing it in position in its wonderful site in front of the historic Market Hall in Chipping Campden. It really is a lovely intimate space..

The brass acorn glinting in the sun.

CW2. Are we nearly there yet?

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CW2. Half way (nearly)

187 letters. Nearly half way. Within acceptable limits!

187 Letters. Nearly half way.

 

CW2. Counting Letters

There are 409 letters to carve. The seven letters of T S Eliot are half sized making them  a lot quicker to cut. 402 two inch letters. My target is to carve the inscription in four weeks. More or less 100 letters per week. 20 letters a day. It should be easy, but they just wont go any faster than 4 in an hour. Sometimes only 3 in an hour. 7 every 2 hours. 21 in 6 hours which is a typical daily hit rate, because there is always other stuff that needs doing when your running a business. 6 uninterrupted, whole focused hours is pretty good going in a day. Today I saw a new client and I carved 9 letters and I fixed the alternator belt on the car. So this week I am 11 letters behind already and I have a couple of school run days when I will be lucky to carve 18 letters, that leaves 2 days when I need to carve 22 letters plus another 5 to catch up the 11, so I make that 18 + 18 + 27 + 27 and I am still a letter down!

How did I do last week? 91. visually nearly a quarter. Not too bad. Plus an eighth short of a  couple of concentric circles. I was getting up to speed and lots of things subverted my time. so I think there is still some better performance to find. I will still need to find those 9 letters though…

At the end of week 1 carving

Tomorrow is another day. everything might flow and I might carve 20 letters in 5 hours. Now I must go to bed and when I close my eyes I will see letters!

 

 

CW2. In the begin N ing

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CW2. Setting Out.

Last week was all about setting out the lettering on the stone. I fixed the stone onto a giant easel I made that allows me to raise it up and spin it round as I progress.

Cotswold Way Marker Stone. The stone fixed on the giant easel I made for carving it.

I had saved my drawing for the first Marker Stone from 2 years ago, so I was able to trace out the letters on to layout paper directly from the original drawing. Most of the text is the same as the Bath Marker Stone but I had to set out the T S Eliot quote from scratch, it being a new framing text around the edge.

Cotswold Way Marker Stone. Setting out.

I set out radial ledger lines using a large homemade compass, and divided the stone into 8 segments, establishing a framework to transfer the lettering into.

Cotswold Way Marker Stone. Setting out.Transfering the lettering onto the stone.

These drawings are not finessed. They carry just enough information to transfer the forms and the spacing.

Cotswold Way Marker Stone. Setting out.Transfering the lettering onto the stone.

The letters are then drawn in by hand with white pencil crayon. Adjustments to spacing and form are made where necessary, serifs added and drawing more fully resolved.

The final drawing on the stone, ready for carving

The chisel though is the final arbiter. This week I will begin to carve….

 

 

The Cotswold Way Marker. Completed!

Here it is finally!

Its taken a while to take and load up a good photograph, but here it is finally completed. October was completely mad and I’ve got a bit behind on posting all the news – I will try and catch up this week with some pictures of the unveiling, which was a wonderful event, and also the show at Walcot Chapel.

 

 

 

Installation!

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Thank you to Cliveden Conservation Workshops for helping with the fix. Tom in the office pulling it all together, and Douglas on site for the jokes. ( photos by Douglas Carpenter)      

Ready to launch

The finished carving, ready to go!

Nearly there.

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We are nearly there! I finished the lettering just over a week ago, and carved the acorn last week. I ran my chisel over the letters for the final time yesterday, making a few final adjustments. All that remains is … Continue reading →