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Day 1

I picked up a sheet of 24″x24″ 16 gauge stainless steel sheet metal from Home Depot.

I prefer Home Depot for its lack of customer service, because it means that I’m not being mansplained to, and it’s on the way to the workshop.

I’m using 16 gauge stainless steel for a couple of reasons:

1. I wanted a thin metal so that I could get my feet wet with manual tools, and 16 gauge is the maximum thickness many of these tools will accept.

2. The tube I found is 16 gauge stainless. (More on that later.)

3. I am not confident enough with my TIG welding to not guarantee that I won’t immediately turn a thinner-gauged metal into a molten ball of sadness.

I also stopped by Rite Aid to get some alcohol to clean the metal.

Can we please take a second to figure out what the hell is going on here?

Like what...what even? Am I supposed to drink it? Will it make my wound minty fresh? Will positive association with the scent sooth a pain that cannot be healed?

These questions are best left to the philosophers.

I cleaned the sheet with rubbing alcohol and a rag. Using a compass, I drew 2 circles on the sheet. Luckily, both circles only take up half the sheet, which means that I have enough material to possibly make 2 waterphones. I chose this size for the circle because it’s the maximum diameter I can get with the compass available to me. Side note: One circle is slightly smaller. More on that later.

I also drew a smaller circle within each of the larger circles to mark off where the lip will be when I mold them into bowls.

Using a straight shear, I cut the entire sheet in half, then in half again.

Straight shear:

Yes, that insanely long thing is the lever. I probably could have made my life easier if I had used the hydraulic shear, but I haven’t learned how to use it yet, and I’ve been impatient to get this project started.

Ta da!

These edges are extremely sharp. I wear work gloves for 1. protection 2. grip, and 3. mild OCD, otherwise I would be washing my hands every five minutes. I used metal files to file down the edges a bit, but a shard still managed to stab me through my glove.

This was bound to happen sooner or later.

The shop has many first aid kits on the premises. This would have been a perfect time to find out the mystery of the wintergreen rubbing alcohol, but unfortunately I had purchased the practical OG 91%, and I must say that it did a fantastic job of cleaning this wound.

It’s like it never happened!

Next up was the Beverly shear, which cuts metal on a curve. I rather like this piece of equipment because it sounds like a character from a Flannery O’Connor short story. Beverly Shear. Her cold gaze could make bold men cower, before cutting them down. She’d have none of that.

After cutting out the metal boobs, I mean circles...

...I ground down the sharp edges with a grinder. Even though grinding metal looks fantastic with sparks flying, I didn’t get any photos because I was working alone, and it’s quite dangerous to be distracted whilst sanding. Something could easily get caught (I removed my gloves), and you could be dragged into the machine, and I’m not trying lose fingers/hands, like, ever. (It would put a serious damper on my ironing game.)

All this took me close to 90 minutes, most of which was measuring and prep.

Tomorrow I will channel the anxiety and existential dread that comes with existing in an imperialist country during a time of advanced capitalism into hitting metal with hammers.

Listening: The amazing Richmond band Manzara (https://manzara.bandcamp.com). Michael Harl has one of my favorite voices ever. Think Clinic’s Ade Blackburn meets early PiL John Lydon. The tone of his 74(?) Silvertone makes me weak in the knees. This seguewayed into listening to another of Harl’s bands, Canary Oh Canary (https://canaryohcanary.bandcamp.com/), which was my favorite Richmond band when they were still together (shakes fist at cruel fate). Wonderful patience in their compositions and transcendent live performances. The payoff in ‘Catholic’ after the slow build (starting at 2:30) is brutal. Toward the end of Canary’s flight, they sounded like the fully-realized synthesis of Swans-meets-Fugazi-meets-Suicide, and while I may never fully recover from their breakup, I’m grateful to have witnessed such a truly great band.

I leave you with a photo of the Beverly shear.

Miz Beverly Shear. You best be mindin your own when she comes round.