MCEDC (Marshall County Economic Development Corporation) has had a busy year so far. As a board member I’ve been pleased with some of the progress we’ve made. Here are a few highlights:
Commerce Building
Now dubbed “The Commerce Building“, the structure is located on Commerce Street in the northwest PIDCO industrial subdivision. It is ready to show now and the shell should be complete by this time next month.
We’ve managed to do all of this without sacrificing any of our ongoing projects such as the County Development for the Future meetings, outreach to the community through SBDC and our commitment of support to Project Lead the Way. I’m looking forward to more good things from MCEDC. If you’re interested in keeping up on those, check out the newsletter link above and add your name to the mailing list. There are more good things to come!
You never know what kind of call you will get around here. Diane Osborn called around the first of August and asked if we could build a 12′ tall artist easel for Heartland Artists to use for sign displays during the Blueberry Festival. That’s not exactly something we get asked every day… We did a little research to try and determine what standard dimensions for an artist easel are. It didn’t take too long to figure out that there aren’t really any standards. We eventually found one that we liked and we went about modifying it to increase dimensions and make it collapsable.
We started with three 12′ 2 x 4’s for legs, joined at the top with bolts and nuts. The front legs are the outer legs and these were beveled to allow them to come in against the back leg when spread. A fourth 12′ 2 x 4 was cut in half for two 6′ lengths. One of those pieces was ripped in half again. One of the ripped pieces was joined to the full piece in an “L” shape to create the tray to hold the display. This would be where the canvas would sit on a normal easel.
We loosely bolted the “L” piece to one front leg. At the other front leg, we placed the bolt through and inch lower, leaving it stick out slightly longer. We then notched the “L” to rest on this bolt and lock it in place. This allowed the whole thing to fold up as one linear stack when not in use and without disassembling the parts. When completed, we had things set up so that it could be assembled without tools and could stand with the nuts and bolts just finger tight. We considered adding chains from the front legs to the back leg to set the open distance, but decided this would limit the flexibility of use and would impede how it folded up.
The final touch was to drill holes in the bottoms of the legs for anchoring. These were drilled horizontally through the legs to allow attachment to stakes if the placement was on earth or other mechanical fasteners if the placement was on pavement. At 12′ high with the potential for more than 32 square feet of signage, we were concerned that it would become a big sail and blow over in the wind. (Live & Learn. This was a problem with the film reel we made several years ago and that was a lot heavier and less top heavy!)
Thanks to Bob Cooper and Mugurel Stefan here at Easterday Construction for finding the parts from stock and assembling the structure. Shelley Heiden with Heartland Artists sent us the pictures which are greatly appreciated. Best wishes to Heartland Artists for many years of use.
A common problem with paint cans is the build up of paint in the lid groove. This can cause spills outside the can and the inability to close the can properly. To reduce this issue, take a 6 penny nail and puncture the can in the groove. These holes allow the paint to drain back into the can. They don’t affect the seal on the can as they are below where the lid friction fits when reinstalled.
Another suggestion is to use a pour spout. This is a flexible plastic piece that fits in the inner groove of the can and form a spout to pour from without drips running down the side of the can. I’ve used these with good success, though there is till some dripping to watch for. It is undoubtedly better than just pouring from the can lip itself. They are fairly inexpensive and reusable.
Picture Source: Amazon.com
Plantation shutters are useful for keeping sunlight out, but they can also be adapted to harvest solar power… at least that is the vision of the San Diego company called Plug ‘n Save Energy Products. Placing these shutters on the windows on the south side of your home will do double duty reducing heat gain from sunlight while collecting the solar energy. Connect the photovoltaic panels on the louvers to an inverter that plugs into an outlet and returns power back to your electrical system.
Picture Source: latimes.com