Oregon State University Mobile

It's done! The mobile for Oregon State University! Matt and Ben started Friday evening and spent the first three hours just getting the hanging point secured. The ceiling was 53 feet tall. The tallest lift they could use in the space was 40 feet tall. It took some creative problem solving to narrow that 13-foot gap...

After that, it was smooth sailing. They finished at 6:30 a.m. Saturday morning and headed straight to a celebratory breakfast. (Denny's has never tasted so good.)

Ringing in the New Year!

2015 has gotten off to a good start. We just got back a pile of rings from the powder coater, which puts us on the home stretch for the Oregon State University project! Rest assured, nobody will be hula hooping these polished, powder-coated, perfectly packaged beauties. From here on out, they get the white glove treatment.

As a side note, when the trusty Subaru is too tiny for project materials, Matt and Ben opt for ZipCar pickup trucks. In this case, not even a pickup was large enough, so the guys built a platform to carefully transport the rings.

Dirty Jobs: Mobile Making

Somebody call Mike Rowe, because this Furman Hall project could make a good Dirty Jobs episode. The mobile incorporates polished copper rings, and the process we're using requires us to polish aluminum, which will later be treated with a copper finish. Anyhow, the polishing process requires grinding away at aluminum, and it's been absolutely filthy.

As you can see below, Matt and Ben created a tent to try keeping the aluminum particles contained, but enough has escaped to layer aluminum dust across the entire shop. And Matt's poor shoes will never be the same.

But. At least the polished rings are looking lovely.

Furman Hall Mobile Renderings

Here are a few renderings of the mobile we're making for Oregon State University's Furman Hall:

Ben created these renderings by dropping images of the mobile onto actual photographs of the space he and Matt took at a recent site visit. We're so proud of Ben, our resident University of Oregon grad, for burying the University Rival hatchet for this project.

A Mobile for Oregon State University

Here's what we'll be focused on for the next two months:

This mobile will hang in the newly renovated Furman Hall at Oregon State University. It will hang 36 feet tall and 7 feet wide, with 16 freely rotating polished copper rings. We're excited about the scope of this project—and that it's local!