Building the Rain Shelter

The Rain Shelter

Today (30-03-19) was the day that we worked on building a rainshelter in the back yatd of the Men in Sheds shop. Thanks to the hard work of Michael Schaefer a volunteer for Chorlton Good Neighbours who agreed to help us with this, we were close to finishing the rain shelter today. Here are photos of the day which mercifully was sunny  and no rain or (importantly) wind

The shelter will be used for bike repairs and storage. Thanks also to Chris, Saleem and Malcolm for their assistance. We aim to put on the final 4 panels on the roof of the shelter, this coming week

Flame Painting with copper

On March 5th Denis Colbridge came to the Merseybank shop and gave a presentation about Flame Painting with copper. 

This involves working with thin sheet copper with an open flame (oxy-propane) which can produce copper of almost any colour. Denis who has an engineering background got interested in flame painting when he was based in the United States. He went on a course run by Skip Mathews (see photo) in Arkansas. 

Skip Mathews at work

Below are some examples of flame painting. He enthused us about the possibility of doing this at SMMiS. Denis has much of the necessary tools and materials and could teach us how to do it

We will set up a group to look at the possibility of engaging in this craft, safely and affordably. Hopefully if we get into production we think there would be a ready market for the bowls, pendants, jewelry, butterflies, copper leaves etc that we might produced