{Set 1 Set 2 Set 3}

They say the night is darkest just before the dawn. Well that was true for the crew of The Neuron Chamber. We had a few long nights of fabracation on this project but none was more intense (or perhaps as fun) as the final night.

This set of photos briefly documents that final long 24 hour day of fabrication before we had to deliver the piece for its debut.

Here you can see the three axons being locked into their final placement. The black disks at then end are the Delrin mounts that electrically isolate the axons (remember we are going to push 9000V though each of these.) These are the end that the sculptures will be build around to conceal. It was around this point that we were starting to realize that we would be unlikely to get the sculptures we had laid out to fully conceal the mounts given the time we had to finsih it.

Each of the axon penetrated one end of the chamber. Concealed in the end cap, each axon then interfaces with a motor and sprocket to drive the ball chain for the arc puller that runs the length of the axon. You can see that each of these motors needed to be mounted a unique angle to interface with the organic twists of the axons. These motors also needed to be electrically isolated hence the black Delrin pad and the white delrin sprocket attachment.

Here is a shot of David getting started on the electrical system early in the day. See how happy and calm he looks? See how neat and orderly his little work space looks?

Here is David and Don several hours later. I think the photo speaks for its self.

We were getting down the the wire (for real) and Ryon Gesink, my shop mate, jumps in to help Ben install the sculpture around the axons. You can see in this phot that we had to “explode” the cell bodies to accommodate the larger then assumed isolating mounts.

A wide view of the crew in action and the shop in full production mode.

Yep. That’s me in the goofy vest and baggy pants pointing at something and likely saying something incoherent at this point. Can you see the masses of wires leaking out of the chamber, we were far form done. Note the hint of dawn leaking in the back door behind me.

Perhaps the best shot of the night/morning. The time stamp is 6:40AM. We had ~3 hours before we needed to get The Neuron Chamber out of the shop and on the road to the show. Ben is contemplating the still not complete project. His look captures the moment well. I truly can’t tell if he is sleeping or not.

These final two shots capture the highly controlled chaos of those final few hours. All we had left to do now was to finish getting the entire electrical system installed.

Well, stay tunned, and you’ll see how it all came together in the final moments and what it looked like at the show!