pointing machine

["Clive Murray-White" <clivemw@zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz>]

Dear Bill,

I've sort of been following the pointing machine topic thinking "all too
complicated for me" when I just realised that I may have a contribution.

I usually work from 2D images directly on to the full size sculpture, I only
use the images as an approximate guide. To speed things up so that I'm not
doing millions of mathematical calculations scaling up from A4
drawings/photographs I enlarge them on my computer to exactly the size of
the piece of stone. Grid them up as A4s and print each as a separate page,
then glue it all together to make a correctly sized  illustration. For my
heads I just do one front view and one profile.

I can then take fairly accurate, quick, measurements directly from the
illustration with callipers and transfer them to the sculpture.

I started to find that the process became very time consuming mainly because
of the necessity to redraw bits of the grid over the 3D surface all the
time.  Oh for the wonders of modern technology, I now use a laser that
produces a single perfectly straight line set up on a tripod. I made the
mistake the first time I used it of using it from a completely fixed point
and just moving the line up and down by tilting the tripod head, of course I
got some minor distortion so now I adjust the hight by winding the tripod up
or down.

I'm tempted to explore the possibility of getting some kind of electronic
range finder to add into the set-up to give me an accurate read-out on
various depths this would speed things up yet again. I don't think I'll ever
go into exploring the potential of using a modern robot but it must be
completely feasible to feed in all the coordinates, turn it on and it
quietly grinds away with complete accuracy.

Best wishes

Clive

PS:  Updated the web site the other day showing the latest project etc.

Sculptor Clive Murray-White
Web: www.cowwarr.com