Paper Mâché Carousel - Attaching the Column - Part 43

 mâché

This week was a holiday weekend.  I did not get very much done on the project.  I spent hours in the kitchen rather than in the studio.  At this point in life, I would have to say that cooking up something "special for the holidays" is highly overrated.   

Apart from that, the weather has been so hot that it has been too hot to go into the studio.  The real temperature was 102 F (38.88 C) and the heat index (feels like) temperature was 110F to 120 F) (43-48 C).  Even with air conditioning, which ran non-stop for three days, it was too hot to stay in the room.  Just standing there was causing me to break out into a sweat.  It was miserable outside and inside.  All we could do was sit in front of the fan and try to stay hydrated.  It really was not conducive to getting anything done.

The only thing that was accomplished on the carousel this week was that the floor and ceiling of the carousel are now attached with screws.  I had thought that my husband was just going to just drill one center hole in the ceiling plate at this point so we would know where to attach it to the center of the column. However, he ended up drilling all the screws in because it was too difficult to make sure everything was level and plumb with it only having one screw in it.  

We did assemble the whole carousel to make sure the holes were keyed to its matched set. When the floor and ceiling were drilled, they were drilled together all at once.  Slight variations in the drilling meant that I had to make sure that the holes that were meant to be together were still paired or else the animals' poles would not be completely upright.  Too much of a slant could cause the pole to break or the ball on the underside to drag at a poor angle.  After all that, my husband suggested I just leave the column together and paint it with the ceiling in place.  I did not get a picture of it together again.  Working in a really hot room was not conducive to thinking about taking pictures.   

I guess this means I will be painting the column very simply just due to the difficulty of trying to paint while ducking my head under the ceiling platform.  Sometimes simpler is better anyway.  I have a new idea and I think it will look great and keep from distracting from the animals.  

Check back next Monday or Tuesday and see how the painting turns out.