Our good friend and client Grainger McKoy came to us with another project a few months ago. It is a 12’ cast stainless steel feather with a series of 7 swan silhouettes cut out of stainless-steel sheet and attached to the feather up to a height of 20’.
As with all of Grainger’s projects we had a sit-down meeting with Grainger and his project managers Paul and Rob Beaty. It’s a think tank session to go over all the known details of the project. I say “known” because every project will have some unknowns as it proceeds.
During our project meetings we trouble shoot design vs function issues that could potentially derail a project. When you work with us, we are your PARTNER. Your name and ours goes on every sculpture and it needs to be the best it can be and last the test of time.
One of those concerns we had in the beginning were the connection points of the swans to the feather and the thickness of the sheet-metal Grainger wanted the swans to be. We knew that the amount of movement in the Swans in an outdoor setting would cause vibration throughout the sculpture. We told Grainger about this and discussed some possible options to lessen the movement. At that time it was agreed that the project would move forward as is, but that once assembled we would evaluate the movement to discuss solutions.
The big day arrived, and the sculpture was assembled with all the swans attached. It looked beautiful!
However, once one swan was shaken, they all started to move and the vibration continued for a while. The sculpture is structurally sound but the vibration that we mentioned in the first meeting was now undeniable. We all knew that something would have to be done.
What to do next!
We went to work collaboration with Grainger on design elements that could be welded onto the sculpture to reduce the movement and stiffen the connection points. They were both functional and astatically pleasing to Grainger.
“You strive for perfection to achieve excellence” – Grainger McKoy