The Pelican Shelf

I am from Louisiana. My wife, Sheryl, is from Indiana but moved to Louisiana. Louisiana is where we met, dated through high school and college, and then got married in Galveston, Texas shortly after we both graduated from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. The state bird of Louisiana is the Pelican. My wife has a Pelican statue on our patio.

1. The shelf was installed by a previous homeowner, possibly Lenora Hollister or Patrick Fletcher, perhaps as long ago as 30 years. Regardless of when it was installed, it had become rotten.

   

   

2. Sheryl asked that I replace it. When I removed it to do so, I found that the shelf had been pooling water which had rotted the siding of the garage.

   

3. So I resealed the siding and replaced the original supporting brace with a larger one, using a standard 2-inch by 4-inch piece of wood, to cover the siding patch. I sealed it with silicone to avoid a repeat of the previous owner's folly.

   

4. The ways in which people design and make things are changing rapidly and dramatically — and to make sure Autodesk stays ahead of this accelerating curve, we created a space in San Francisco called Pier 9 to help us explore new technologies and techniques that are going to be key to our success in the future. Pier 9 is a state-of-the-art facility and fabrication workshop on San Francisco's Pier 9 that features 3D printing facilities, a range of CNC machines, metal and wood shops, and office and conference space.

   My plan was to make a template of the shelf using a piece of cardboard and an Epilog Laser Cutter at Pier 9. The original shelf was a quarter circle with a 12-inch radius. I had made my support structure a little larger to cover up the siding patch job. Knowing that the local hardware store sold wood in 12-inch by 18-inch pieces, I tried making an arc that was 12 by 13½ inches. As you can see, that didn't work out:

   

   It was too small. I didn't have a compass. Alternatively, I could have used a piece of string tied to a pencil to mark the line, but I wanted a nice smooth line. The laser cutter made the template absolutely perfect.

5. So I used the laser cutter to make an arc using a 13½-inch radius.

   

   That worked.

6. Since I now needed a piece with a larger than 12-inch side, I went to Home Depot where they sold larger pieces of wood. I got a sheet that was 24-inches by 24-inches.

   

   It was $14.00, but that's what I get for designing something without considering the pieces that will be used to make it. Perhaps I should have covered the siding patch some other way?

7. I laid the cardboard template on the wood and traced it with a pencil. I used a jig saw to cut the piece.

   

8. I sanded it and applied the first coat of paint.

   

9. I installed it with screws.

   

10. I wasn't happy with the little bit of paint that had run over the edge.

    

11. So I sanded that spot and applied a second coat of paint. Alas, it rained later that day, and the paint was ruined (blotchy).

    

12. So I waited for a sunny day, lightly sanded it, and applied a new second coat.

    

    In addition to the support structure being sealed with silicone, the spaces between the shelf and the fence/siding are also sealed. Hopefully, this will last 30 years or so. I'd hate to have to go out there when I am 86 years old and repeat the process.

13. Now the Pelican is back in its rightful place in our patio.

    

As an aside, I did make one mistake when using the laser cutter to cut out my template.

• To make it easy to line up my 13½" arc, I used a 13½" by 13½" layout in the program.

  

• When going to actually cut the cardboard, I placed an 18" by 24" inch piece of cardboard in the laser cutter.

  

• I expected that the extra width and length would just be ignored on the unused ends of the cardboard and that I would get this:

  

• What I wound up getting was:

  

• It turned out that the device coordinate origin appears in the lower left and not the upper left. So I simply adjusted the layout in the program to match the size of the cardboard I was actually using, and all's well that ends well.

  

  The moral of the story is do not fib to the Epilog laser cutter.

A not-so-brief statue project is alive in the lab.