Gathering my thoughts

That's it. all of my component parts have been completed so it's just a matter of pulling it all together.

Just to check:

Brain - modelled, moulded, cast and polished - tick

Words - Vinyl printed and cut, glass cut (x2), letters acid etched,, glass cleaned - tick

Frame - commissioned, confirmed ready - tick

Lighting....... Oops!  It would have been a bright idea to have updated on that.

The final piece will have lighting within the infinity mirror.  This will comprise of UK mains powered LED light ribbon and has been installed as part of the commissioned frame, so that's okay.  The brain is also being lit but will be independent from the frame.

I want to backlight the brain using rice grain LEDs and for ease of installation these will be battery operated  The decision to be made here was what colour, if indeed a colour? I tried a variety of LEDs (I try to keep a small stock of LEDs as you never know when the notion might take you) ranging from cool white, red, green and multicoloured and also a combination of these.

Each colour brought out something different in the glass and created entirely different moods as you can see from the images below.

I decided to install the clear light as that brought out all of the colours in the glass as initially designed.

Lights - tested, chosen and installed - tick

Now to put it together. 

The easy part was installing the second pane of word etched glass and mirror etc into the frame however these were the last steps.  First of all I had to fix the cast brain onto the first pane of word etched glass.  There are many glue, fixing and bonding agents on the market however given the weight of the cast (almost 1Kg) I decided that Bohle UV bonding was the preferred option.

UV bonding requires both glass parts are as smooth and clean as possible, thankfully I had spent the required amount of time polishing the cast glass.  The bonding gel was applied to the rear surface of the brain cast and this was carefully placed onto its position on the sheet of glass.  Once I was satisfied it was in the correct location and all residue clean away I exposed the joint are to ultra violet light (UV).  The UV light causes the bonding gel to cure and it does this within a few minutes, although a more permanent and confident bonding occurs if you leave it exposed to the UV for as long as possible.

I fixed a series of clear, yellow and turquoise blue rods and stringers as an extension to the brain stem and down to the edge of the frame.  This served to disguise the power chord for the brain's LEDs power pack which was fixed to the back pf the frame.

And as they say, that was that...

I hope you've enjoyed following the making of this piece.  It does form one part to my submission for this college brief so please read my next blogs as they take you through the making of My Deconstructed Journey and will also include the final installation of both pieces.