[PSUBS-MAILIST] Bruce Beasley Acrylic Casting

[JimToddPsub at aol.com]

See Wikipedia for more on Bruce Beasley.  Excerpt below:
 
1970s
 
Fascinated by the esthetics of transparency, Beasley worked in cast acrylic 
 for the next ten years. In 1974, members of the undersea research 
community  approached Beasley to see if he could adapt his technique to cast 
transparent  bathyspheres for undersea exploration. He succeeded in creating the 
bathyspheres  for _Johnson Sea Link_ 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_Sea_Link)   submersibles for _Harbor  Branch Oceanographic Institute_ 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harbor_Branch_Oceanographic_Institute) ._[6]_ 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Beasley#cite_note-6)   It was these submersibles 
that were deployed to locate the crew compartment on  the bottom of the 
ocean after the Space Shuttle _Challenger_ 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger)   disintegrated upon liftoff in 1986. 
Beasley continued to make transparent sculpture for the next ten years. His 
 transparent sculptures were exhibited widely both in the US and abroad 
including  solo exhibitions in 1972 at the _DeYoung Museum_ 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeYoung_Museum)  in San  Francisco, the _Santa Barbara  Museum of 
Art_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Barbara_Museum_of_Art) , the _San 
Diego Museum of  Art_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Diego_Museum_of_Art) 
, and group shows including the _Salon de Mai_ 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salon_de_Mai)  in Paris and  at _Expo 70_ 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expo_70)  in _Osaka_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osaka) , _Japan_ 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan) .
 
 
In a message dated 10/12/2013 8:00:18 A.M. Central Daylight Time,  
jon.wallace at yahoo.com writes:

Nice job  Alan.  I always wondered where he was, he seemed to disappear 
after his  work with Stachiw ended.  We should see if he's interested in being 
a  guest speaker for a future  conference.

--------------------------------------------
On Sat,  10/12/13, Alan <alanlindsayjames at yahoo.com> wrote:

Subject:  [PSUBS-MAILIST] Bruce Beasley Acrylic Casting
To: "Personal Submersibles  General Discussion" 
<personal_submersibles at psubs.org>
Date: Saturday,  October 12, 2013, 1:26 AM

While in San Francisco I looked up
Bruce  Beasley's contact details.
He is one of Americas pre- eminent sculptures  & a
pioneer in casting thick sectioned acrylic.
I thought I was  heading to his gallery but it ended up being
his home & studio.
For  those who are unfamiliar with the story, Bruce was
attracted to acrylic as  a sculpting
medium but no one had cast it more than two inches thick.  He
managed to cast a 4" thick 
model of a proposed 13ft x 4ft art work  that he submitted
for a competition for a State of California  public
sculpture. The judges awarded him the prize & finance  to
built it. Unbeknown
to them the technology to make it didn't exist.  
Du Pont the acrylic manufacturer told Bruce they couldn't
offer him  technical assistance as he had already exceeded
what their chemists could  achieve, but would supply him the
raw product free.
He observed the  formation of bubbles in the polymerising
acrylic through windows in an  autoclave & discovered how
to eliminate them & the cracking, that  were the Achilles
heel of the process. 2 castings later he created The 13ft  x
4ft casting. He said if he hadn't have made it he could have
been  sued. 
It was at that point that Jerry Stachiw from the U.S.  navy
approached him to make thick acrylic spheres for deep  diving
submersibles. There were several failures before success
&  the price tag on these failures was the equivalent of
a new  VW.
Anyway he ushered me in to his living room
&  chatted away. I have a background in art
so we related well, & he ended  up giving me a book which
was a retrospective of his  sculpture,
including the story of his acrylic sculpture. I think he  was
quite impressed that someone from N.Z.
knew his story & had  tracked him down.
He still has the secrets to manufacturing large castings  if
anyone wants to purchase the technology.
So again I've been totally  spoilt.
Alan





Sent from my  iPad
_______________________________________________
Personal_Submersibles  mailing  list
Personal_Submersibles at psubs.org
http://www.psubs.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/personal_submersibles


_______________________________________________
Personal_Submersibles  mailing  list
Personal_Submersibles at psubs.org
http://www.psubs.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/personal_submersibles
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.whoweb.com/pipermail/personal_submersibles/attachments/20131012/9650ba4d/attachment-0001.html>