Having rec’d my shipment of a half ton of clay, I think I can say this model has begun.
I finished the special steel and ply stand, its shown below.
In the background are 20, fifty pound boxes of clay stacked up. Off to the right is another 750 pounds of raku clay, so I’m glad when I added this room on I built the floor especially strong, but then I knew I would be putting concentrated loads in like this.
Closer shot of the new modelling stand, this is made of welded 1/4″ thick steel angles and flats, with 3 layers of 3/4″ plywood laminated for the bottom and another for the top.
The casters are ball bearing equipped, lockable and rated for 550# each. The stand weighs a little over 150#
Below is a crop of a scan of the original Sullivan architectural rendering of a portion of the entrance doorway, all of the original 1914 measurements for the lions are right there for me to make use of. The clay model will want to be 5% larger to compensate for shrinkage, but in all actuality I will make it 10% larger as there is a good possibility eventually I may press clay casts of it, which means 2 times that 5% shrinkage.
In other words my model should wind up 5% larger than the original, and after making a mold and a cast in clay, it’s 5% shrinkage will make it about the same size as the originals.
The measurements on the drawing are written in sideways, the other numbers such as 119, 120, 121 etc are setting numbers given to the terra cotta blocks making up the rest of the doorway.
