Ben & Ambrose: Collaborating on Jib Tubes

Ambrose preparing a jib tube (and surrounded by his finished pieces).
Photo taken by Ms. Charlap.

Below two Edge Makers - Ben and Ambrose - discuss their partnership in preparing features for Ben's project:  a terrain park.  Their words are a testament to their robust collaboration skills and effective work processes.

Ben:
Finding parts for the wind chime, I came across some really strong cardboard tubes.  My original plan was to use it as a tail tap even though it wasn't going to last long.  It wasn't going to last because the weather would get to it.  Talking with Ms. Charlap, she said we could have a student paint the tubes and then use the leftover NOVA Gel (from the pictures hanging on the side of the schoolhouse building) to cover the tubes.  That way they wouldn't weather.  We chose Ambrose, a fellow EDGE student, to paint the tubes.  By now, I had two long tubes, so I decided to cut them into five sections with a saw.  Then, I needed to seal the tops so that water couldn't get in and ruin it from the inside.  So, I took a plastic garbage bag, cut it to the size, then duct-taped it on.  Next, I took a piece of sheet metal and cut it a little bit bigger than the hole, drilled holes in the metal and tube, screwed it down, and hammered the metal so it was beveled along the edge.  Then, I gave it to Ambrose.

Ambrose:
As this was going on I would paint large sheets of rag paper with different designs, shapes, and images.  After the paintings were done, I covered them with NOVA Gel, a waterproof acrylic medium, and attached them to the cardboard tubes and finished them with two more layers of that substance.  I made five paintings.  The images are all different, but a lot of the paint colors are the same.  I only had a couple colors at hand, but I managed to figure out how to mix some of them to get the colors I was looking for.

Ben:
Now we just need to wait for the right weather to try them out!

Have a suggestion on materials for Ben and Ambrose? Want to know more about the project and/or these students' work? Drop us a comment in the section below!