Good Morning! I just downloaded new pictures from the past few weeks. The pictures are from the Up, Up, & Away exhibit as we construct the layout and build cases. This was the week I learned how to use power tools!!! (I am very excited about this if you can't tell.)

First project of the week was to construct walls. Why are we constructing walls, you may ask. Well, each exhibit that goes into the changing gallery has a different layout. In order to change the layout we have to tear down or construct walls. In fact, many of the walls in the galleries are temporary walls. Now I have constructed some walls before, but usually with the help of several guys. So Jacob was kind enough to let me construct two walls with little to no help from him.
Here are pictures of the first wall I built:

This first wall, and the second wall you see below all had to be anchored into the wall. We do this by screwing it into the wall.  For the first wall we did not have to put weights on it to weigh it down because of the weight of the wall it is attached to.  The second wall, however had to have that small piece attached to it to help it stand up straight, and then weights were added later to anchor it.  

The third week, was the actual painting of the walls.  I had an awesome time walking around barefoot (in the gallery only) so I was sure not to track paint onto the carpet.  I also got to wear a painting outfit to keep paint off my clothes.  The Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie kept going through my head, and I was singing Oompa Loompa Dobidoo all day.  The staff had a great kick out of it.    Here is a rather rough pictures from that.  I will attach the oompa loompa gettup picture in a little while.  

With the gallery walls built and painted, it was time to move onto building cases.  We bought MDF (medium density fiber) to cut and stain as the backing to the cases.  This particular task introduced the most terrifying power tool in the shop: the table saw (dah dah dum).  After a non-to-brief safety lesson in which many horror stories were told, I decided to either stand on the other side of the room while the saw is being operated or to help move the MDF through the saw but from a distance (MDF is very heavy and very big, so it was a two person job).  Maybe one day I will build up the courage to use the table saw, it just probably won't be this summer.  

Below is a picture of the case backings after the cutting process was complete. 

Ok that is enough writing for this post! The blog is now up to date, and I will explain more about the case construction we are doing this week in my next post!  Have a great day everyone!!

-Christina