Welcome back to the basement!
Now believe it or not I’ve done training for writing this blog (no really I have) and one of the things I discovered that this is (apparently) a niche subject. More niche in fact than blogging about how to make and repair “Imperial Storm trooper”™ costumes (there are 3 blogs in the world on that subject whereas I can’t find any other Art gallery technician blogs) so if you are reading this, congratulations! You have the refined taste of the individual! However there is nothing niche about this post, this one’s got worldwide- no universal– appeal (that’s right even the storm troopers will be reading this one). This blog is about making plinths!
Now before we begin I must warn you this could get pretty exciting and there are a lot of awesome photographs so if you think it may be too much maybe go away and make a cup of tea and come back to it when you are ready…
Right so; “how to make a plinth” (don’t worry the Master Guild of Art Gallery Technicians won’t be after me for this; I won’t be giving away any trade secrets- coincidentally if there are any Art Gallery Technicians reading this, fancy starting a Master Guild of Art Gallery Technicians with me? We could rough up any Art Gallery Technicians that give away trade secrets…)
You will need:
- a table saw
- many sheets of 18mm MDF
- many clamps of varying styles (for variety)
- wood glue
- biscuits (both the eating and joining kind)
- other stuff probably…
Cut MDF to size and then mitre edges…
Biscuit join the edges, glue and then clamp using as many different clamps as possible and if you’re as cool as me then you can also use a miniature anvil…
Fill any small gaps in joins and then sand…
Paint an undercoat layer; I have gone for a beautiful light grey ready for a dark grey top coat.
Paint a few top coats, here I have gone for black (yes this a different plinth to the ones above). Then you are finished! A word of caution here, if you spend too long making plinths you may end up writing rambling, silly blog posts.
The past two weeks I have been making plinths for the upcoming Touring gallery exhibition, “The Poetic Impossibility to Manage the Infinite” by Edgar Martins, 7th February 2015 – 2nd May 2015 and the Pop gallery exhibition, “Pop in Space”, 23rd February – 18th July 2015. So be sure to check both of those out when the time comes, but don’t worry because there will be posts about their installs and a reminder of dates.
However the next blog post will be about felling the forest in the touring gallery and de-installing, “the Making of Mordor”, now I know that it’s going to be hard to live up to the excitement of this post and I’m sure we’ve all lost count of how many times we’ve read about felling indoor forests of some 2000 trees but I will do what I can to make it as amazing as this was. Why not come back next time to see whether I managed it, and bring all your friends to help us escape the niche and beat the darkside (by the darkside I mean DIY stormtroopers).
May the force be with you…
Behind the Scenes with the WAVE Technicians 