If you’ve followed any of our hot tub antics in the past, then you already know about the inflatable hot tub party on Ocean Beach in San Francisco. A few years ago we built a heat exchanger that would use a bonfire to heat up salty ocean water.

This winter I’m taking on a new project, following our work on Carbon Garden: to build a hot tub entirely out of carbon fiber.  Since fiberglass hot tubs are common, the same techniques should apply to building the carbon fiber tub.  Step one is to come up with a pleasing design, and for this I’m using Rhino, a CAD software tool.

The 3D shape is sliced into multiple flat pieces along the black lines, which are then cut out of 1/2″ plywood on a shopbot CNC router.  I’ve decided it will be easier to build the positive shape, so the mold will be more  of a hump than a dish.

Here’s a video of the shopbot going at it too

Next the mold stays are assembled by cutting correct length support pieces (according to the CAD model) and screwing the whole thing together. Here’s an image of the mold partially assembled.  In this shot the mold is upside down since it’s easier to put together that way.  Eventually it gets flipped over and it will look more like a hump.

Once the mold stays are assembled, I’ll lay sheets of paperboard across it to complete the bowl shape, then like drywall, apply plaster and sand it perfectly smooth (don’t want any bumps on the interior of the hot tub of course).  When the mold is complete it will be time to lay up the carbon fiber.  But that’s for another rainy winter day…

Carbon Garden is ready to hit the road and get planted in its intended desert soil on the playa at Burning Man. Here’s a quick vid showing our crew hard at work. No idle hands round these parts the past few weeks. It’s been late nights, lots of pizza and chinese, a huge effort to get our new 12′ tall flowers standing tall. The tall flowers are made purely from carbon fiber, including the bloom, stamen, Flame Element holder, flanges, and stem. Thanks to everyone who helped make the project a reality!

Carbon Garden will be placed in the center of the playa, 700 feet from the Burning Man along the 4:30 axis.  The Garden will be alight with fire and music each night from 9pm - 3am.  There will also be two dawn sessions on Thursday and Saturday, with an acoustic concert on Saturday morning with surprise players.

Our first 10′ tall carbon flower with a 42″ diameter bloom.  Here’s a video showing what the flowers look like before trimming and stem attaching.  This stem is also our first one made of pure carbon fiber.  We used a biaxial twill sleeve from Soller Composites and laid it up over foam pool noodles.  After applying epoxy the stretchy sleeve is folded to create a ribbing effect similar to bamboo.

Back in 2003 my maniac friends and I thought it would be fun to start blowing bubbles with oxygen and acetylene and exploding them with a tiki torch. Who knew those were the early days of The Hydrogen Economy!

As you may know our esteemed False Profit Labs colleagues aren’t just fire artists, they’re scientists too!  Well, that’s what they do during the day, and nights too when they’re at the Woods Hole Marine Biology Lab.  But when they aren’t busy curing cancer and dissecting DNA they also like to record explosions at 5000 frames per second.  Here’s a video made by and starring Dyche Mullins and Ethan Garner and other cool folks out in Massachusetts for the summer.  Come for the super slow-mo explosions.  Stay for the pressure waves of a slap across the face.

In case you didn’t catch Carbon Garden at Fire Arts Festival, check out our new teaser video for Burning Man.

Prefer HD?  Download here.

Check out the Hot Preview on KTVU.com about Fire Arts Festival. Some nice coverage of the event including Carbon Garden.

Video: http://www.ktvu.com/video/20046933/
Slideshow: http://www.ktvu.com/slideshow/entertainment/20046824/detail.html

Setup at Fire Arts Festival: KTVU Photo

Tina Yonas made a documentary about the Flame Tree Workshop and other art studios at Coachella.  Nice job to her, to our own Whit Bissell and the rest of the FPLabs crew who inspired their students to create some really cool copper sculptures.

http://web.me.com/sascheideman/The_Coachella_Art_Studios/Copper.html

We had The Hydrogen Economy and PyroCardium steel frames professionally powder coated, but I’ve always wanted try out this process since it produces beautiful, durable results. This holiday season I made some candleholders from iron pipe fittings then powder coated them at home with a kit I bought for $140 and an electric oven.  The shine and vibrant colors really brings the piece together, and they make good gifts for those who appreciate industrial sculptures.

About Powder Coating
Powder Coating is an electrostatic process where a charged pigment dust is sprayed into the air with a handheld gun. The pigment particles become positively charged in the gun and stick to the part which is connected to ground. You see powder coating all over the place: bicycles, motorcycles, park benches, cars. My initial impression was that it looks so good I figured the process would require expensive equipment or some hard-won skill. Turns out neither is really the case–you can powder coat at home with an inexpensive kit and an electric oven.

Powder Coating Video

Full details on Instructables

Powder Coated Iron Pipe Candleholder