apologies upfront that it's a little noisy I'm in a working shop right now
and we're not gonna stop them working behind me is the display shop for the
Smithsonian this is where all the racks and bins and frames that house the
pieces of American history that the Smithsonian puts on display all of that
gets built here under all sorts of different conditions sometimes it's just
simple pieces of acrylic sometimes it's super complex cases and Shop lead Chris
is gonna walk me through all of the technologies they use here so walk me
through the overview look at this so this is our fabrication facility this
machine back here does a milling for that Frank case system it basically puts
a groove on acrylic that we then assemble into cases with an extrusion oh
can we go look at this sure absolutely so this is just for the extrude this is
just to do a system yeah this is a sample piece that we did but basically
it's individual pieces of acrylic that are cut to size and then milled so this
machine will take a finished piece right and mill this grew in the edge of the
acrylic and then we assemble the case using this extrusion and it's captured
it's captured Wow the benefit is that if a panel is damaged it can be replaced
right if it has to be shipped it can be flat packed for shipping it also saves
you any you don't have to fabricate perfect you don't that brigate new
joints no pity right so the the solvin welded bubble-free joint which would be
the old way of doing it yeah is actually pretty expensive and time-consuming this
is much faster and forgiving aesthetically it's not that much
different really the edge of this piece of acrylic
is machined with the groove on the side that matches the groove on this aluminum
extrusion so it captures and actually holds on to it
it's like making your own tinker toys for the trains that is so pretty cool so
I mean there must be a certain part of what you do here is always looking for
technologies like this that can make your process more efficient yes
and more reliable and also absolutely I mean it's funny I wrote a I wrote a long
essay on glue and my essay on glue is that I hate glue because it's a one-way
solution and the Trine's and display cases or something I love to build and
love to use in my shop but again you found a modular mechanical way that
gives you a lot more freedom no it's a great solution and it really does work
how long have you been using this system about seven eight years I think wow I
see standard complement of working tools and Europe Asia we have pretty much the
gamut sliding table saws standard table saws jointer planer shaper and it seems
kind of crap cause it is kind of quiet we're we're sort of in between major
projects so everything's calmed down so we have a finishing operation behind
that roll door and then he Roberto's remaining writing and finish we're not
gonna bother Roberto because he's in there painting right now got it yeah we
have our CNC in the room down here let's go take a look at that how many people
would be working here in a crunch when you guys are trying to get an exhibit
across the line between this shop and 3d studio
not counting the graphics operation between this fab shop and 3d studio we
run about 18 people I do have a really life I do have a staff of temporary
intermittent so I can't bring in overflow hires under category temporary
room in so you know I've been up to about 22 people okay but we kind of bump
in elbows at that point I wasn't in it gets pretty busy pretty fast well so I
mean because you've got so much CNC stuff going on I would imagine people
are always making batches and parts in which if one is missing it yeah so we
try to work everything with like a digital fab as the model we're trying to
get to that point a digital literacy we're trying to get it so that everybody
can model their part draw their fire code it and cut it and then everyone's
on the same page it's it's a ongoing process but generally we model the stuff
we will then break the parts out do the tool coding we'll cut the parts the
parts end up in carts when I see something like this here like each of
these has kind of a number on it yeah it's a yachtie piace everything
will be coded the part gets all coated in the front office okay and basically
every set of parts gets a traveller that comes with it that shows what it is
you're building it gives you information about all parts that are going to be in
it like and generally no a couple of views of the thing showing you where all
the parts are and how they go together so when this when the kit hits the bench
the assembler pretty much has what they need now what you think still go wrong
but right this this is where we're trying to get to but I mean what's great
about this too is that if something's missing you just say I need to run
another note exactly exactly instead of I have to go get time on the machine to
go make this exactly oh that's brilliant yeah so that so that's what we're trying
to get to that's awesome so I have a question about your duster treatment
well because it's delightful looking at it's like Brazil the young bee do you
end up with them interesting hitches we're sawdust gathers in certain places
yes yes we do depending on machine like the planer what will have trouble over
there it'll stack up in the column I've got to get the drawing proved over where
the chop saw so I'm gonna get a new chops up and I need much better draw
over there requesting to get a bigger pipe so is there some sort of big air
blast you do to kind of clear of nose so basically we go around into just events
and try to increase the draw through the clock tube or basically get on the lift
and disassemble it and Ram it out with a stick all right
here's an example of a case so does plexi does it cry let go and he that's
this this grooc is for acrylic and on this is a removable you know top batten
okay that drops in and would prevent them basically secure the case in place
so this deck would be a painted or fabric cut right right and then
underneath here these chambers all allow air flow in and underneath and there
will be a often a desiccant chamber an acrylic box top desk in the trail we
have a hatch down on this end of the case so you'll be able to access that
through a like a marine bulkhead yeah open up the desk and chamber change the
desk in the trail it all works through the case and basically of
manages the climate and this just to make sure if you're putting in some
ancient pair of Civil War pants and you want to separate if you need to control
humidity right right right either keep it at a certain level or you know dry it
out or whatever the descant will do that for you and we basically the thing is
set up with chambers that allow that to happen may now conservation is an issue
so inside the case there'll be a piece of Horo aluminum that goes down here
with an opening that drops into gaskets here yeah
the acrylic chamber is is acrylic there'll be aluminum on the back of here
then you've got silicone gasket and acrylic bonnet so the inside the area of
the case is completely sealed and there are no organic materials you won't have
any formaldehyde exactly and then yeah we basically use barriers you either
enter materials to begin with there barriers over any of the organics and
that's how we control for conservation amazing inside the case and then you
know the levels of comfort conservation vary based on the artifacts or vary
based on the museum's because we deal with all the different museums yeah so
we have to follow whatever they tell us they need and you guys use item sealed
like a mix of plywood some natural hardwood this is poplar we're getting
ready to mill this down for throw pop ringers for some curved walls what we're
about to build okay and the finish on that is going to be a European steamed
beach we bought a whole load of that because that's all the finished trim on
these these curved wall units and you've got someone sculpting here yeah so now
we've moved out of fabrication into what we call the 3d studio so this is where
we do the other half the work this is where we do reproductions of things we
do models we do mounts we do 3d printing we also have a machine shop in here oh
and we have a metal shop so you want to glue those I certainly do so this is our
metal shop it's it's not huge a couple of old integer pattern tables which so
beautiful it's lovely to be able to have them a lot of fun
we just picked up a CNC plasma cutter oh so we're sort of learning our way around
that and basic stuff you know horizontal bandsaw
a cold saw and the plasma good so I guess you have your plenty of great air
filtration coming out of here because it would imagine the plasma kind of going
would make it very it would not being a production shop the intermittent use
yeah we can we can manage if it was running eight hours a day I'd have a
whole nother ventilator system on it sure but this is so this is our metal
shop alright but inside here this is the machine shop okay so there's no we've
got training going on it's been scheduled for a while but we have a
couple of HOF CNC Mills and then a lot of you know basic a couple of bridge
ports and then a little bit of everything yeah we have a little bit of
everything yeah we got a lot of hardware yeah Matt we've picked up over the years
I'd say it's a lovely amount of space you have so that's the metal shop and I
think at this point this is the 3d studio so I'm gonna turn this over to
Caroline well thank you so much it's a beautiful space pleasure sir