Onward and Well Upward: The Stalk and Pod Update

Today was a good day. We took a drive and saw some new scenery and one traffic jam. Way cool traffic jam. Worked this afternoon and made progress and changes on the pod and stalk. The large leaves are now stainless steel not rusty tin roofing. The pod is shorter and wider. The cedar has two coats of spar varnish. It is now waterproof and very red. The stem is 1/2” rebar rather than 3/4”. The 3/4” seem out of proportion so 1/2” instead.

The stainless steel leaves were problematic. Like Superman, I can bend steel in my bare hands, but not stainless steel. Who knew? I had to make a tool to put a curve in the base of the leaves so they would wrap around the base. So there Superman! Brains over brawn! I did like his suit though. Next come the small leaves that wrap the stem. New small bending tool coming right up.

This project was supported by the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.