I had originally thought to call this piece “Chuck’s Amethyst Mine”. But I changed my mind.This sculpture is named for Chuck McBride, a fellow in California who seeks out and explores old gold mines from the California gold rush days (1848-1855). We first corresponded when I was seeking reference material on old mining carts for […]
I now have a functioning water wheel with water. A few still pictures of the operating water wheel follow.The water pump was put into one end of a reservoir fashioned from 1 1/4 inch ABS pipe. The reservoir hold about 350 ml or 1 and a half cups of water. The pump fills the water […]
I am beginning to assemble the water mechanism for the water wheel.The water reservoir will sit underneath the mine office. This reservoir will contain a submerged pump driven by the battery and electronics in the office that will pump water into the water tower. The water will come out of the tower at the bottom […]
The smoke generator for the mine office is now working.Dave Bodnar posted an interesting implementation of a smoke generator that created smoke by burning glycerine using heating coils from electronic cigarettes. Like Dave, my implementation uses KangerTech 1.8 ohm heating element coils to make the smoke. However, my original implementation of his solution, although functional, […]
The mine office and crusher and water wheel are now mostly complete.The water wheel gear assembly went through a few iterations of development. I couldn’t find metal drive gears of the proper size so I thought that plastic drive belts could be used for the gearing. However, I abandoned this plan when I realized that […]
I have started to cast the mine office. This building will contain the water pump and reservoir for the water system and the electric motor with gears and bearings to turn the water wheel at 3 RPM. Switches, batteries, electronics, and solar panels for a self-contained system are all contained in this building.I created the […]
It is now time to prepare the engineering drawings and do the arithmetic and finalize how my complete sculpture will be put together.This piece began with the idea to build another western sculpture for the Calgary Stampede in 2020. The idea was to create an 1890’s gold mine setting. I thought I could build a […]
I have started to construct my old wooden mine cart. The mine cart, to me, is a tool that uniquely symbolizes the old west. These are the gold rush days with mining towns and saloons and lawlessness and the development of the frontier. This actual wooden ore cart dumps from the end but it can […]
I am starting a new, completely original sculpture that will replicate an old 1890’s western gold mine. I am creating this work as another piece that I may submit to the Calgary Stampede in July, 2020.This work will be at 1:18 scale and similar in size to my Stagecoach sculpture.My plans are to create and […]
