Saturday, April 11, 2015

Construction of my workshop..

One of the (to me) more difficult aspects of doing Suminagashi, is having a wet working table.. granted, if your working on sheets of paper, it's relatively easy to just pick up a plastic container from wal-mart, or Home Depot and work in that.

My dreams have been a bit more grandiose.  I didn't want to set myself up with a small tub when what I was interested in doing was Silk Scarves for Ladies apparel.  Why not build something that would fulfill my needs in either case?

After thinking about dimensions for a time, I decided that the easiest size to construct would be
24" X 96" simply cutting a sheet of wood in half and setting up rails on the side to contain the liquid.  Thats exactly what I did.

I got some pieces of 3/4 inch PVC piping (because Home Depot was out of the fittings I wanted in the 1/2 inch size) a sheet of 1/2 inch OSB sheeting to use as the base wood (cheaper than regular plywood) and had Home Depot cut it in half lengthwise.

 With a drill and hacksaw, I was able to easily construct a frame that would allow sheet plastic to be pulled over it and maintain both a portable, and fully reusable wet bed for water dying. :)

Of course, it wasn't quite that easy..  in the setup pictured, the table isn't quite level.. so when I started to fill it and the water weight grew.. it pulled the sheet plastic on one side more than the other and next thing I knew I had water pouring out on the downhill side.   Sometimes I learn the best lessons about being more patient :)


that added another item to the list, clamps or something to enable me to secure the plastic sheeting.. Since I'm doing my best to do this low budget until I know I'll stick with it, I went out and got some clothes pins, and they work fine at adding enough tension to the plastic to keep it from dumping on me!

First step completed!  it all comes apart, and I can stand it up against the wall of the garage if needed between sessions/experiments, and is fully usable when I'm in the mood!

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