Well, here it is. The first of the top coats has begun. After some weeks and several under coats, another complete sanding, followed by a mishap with a collapsing scaffold, the colour is finally being applied.
It is so exciting to see it. The weather has warmed up enough to paint without heating. A suitable heater was eventually found and ordered from America, but it still hasn't turned up. It won't go to waste though. It will get used for other jobs. Even this one, if the weather turns particularly cold again.
The under coats went on fairly smoothly, but the sanding took a lot of time, as well as cleaning the sculpture for each coat.
Just as Grant was finishing the final under-coat last week, the scaffold collased that he was standing on. Luckily he was only bruised and sore for a few days. The steel just buckled and twisted for no apparent reason. It's something that we will have to follow up on.
It's another warm day today and Grant will get another pod painted. It looks like it will need 3 to 4 coats to have a good coverage.
The remaining steps are to employ a concreter to dig the footings and a pour a concrete base on the site. Then to somehow get the sculpture on to the back of a truck, off this block of land through the trees and then up to Melbourne to install. This will involve a crane plus driver, a truck plus driver and a pilot car because it is over-sized for the roads. All this will happen, hopefully, by the end of the month.
