Occasionally I try and be clever about resining my assemblage keys and create makeshift molds. In my mind: the keys will become surrounded with a lovely layer of clear resin that will hold delicate bits together and feel smooth and beautiful to the touch. In reality: I don’t seem to be learning from my past and keep persevering with ideas (like using play-dough or tuck tape) that don’t really work. Ideas that result in blobs of resin and a key that is lost inside a strange shape. Ideas that lead to a lot of cutting and sanding with my trusty Dremel tool. Cutting and sanding that is best done outside. An activity not conducive to the overly long Saskatchewan winters.

I watched a video about how to make an indoor sanding box sometime in January. Sometime in February I purchased a large plastic box (on sale - hurray!) to make my own indoor sanding box. Sometime after that I realized that I already had a large plastic box that would work; one without wheels on the bottom that might get in the way. I had a nice thick piece of plastic (the back of a sign holder from Staples) to use as a “window” on the top of the box. Cutting the hole for the window with an exacto knife was a challenge which is best described as a failure. I decided to drill holes into the plastic to make the job easier.

I managed to cut a “window” slot - nothing at all like the straight lines in the video I watched.

Things got worse when I tried to cut in some hand/arm holes…

I didn’t give up at this point…I just…walked away…eventually I wondered if I even needed a plastic bin. Maybe I could use an easy-to-cut cardboard box and seal the whole thing up with packing tape? Some time after that I was cleaning up the garage as one does when living under a “don’t leave the house unless you really need to scenario” and I spied a lovely blue Rubbermaid box. A glorious box made of thick, soft plastic. Soft plastic that I thought would be relatively easy to cut…

Window ready to be taped down (I used weather stripping tape and ended up covering it with gorilla tape to make it sturdier)

I made some sleeves from an old shower curtain liner. Initially I made long tubes; they worked as sleeves but were too narrow to attach to the box and were too tight to move in comfortably. Sometime in the night I thought that maybe if I cut out a big circle there’d be plenty of material to attach to the holes in the box. The next day as I was putting this plan into action I decided that a half circle would do and I made two cone-shaped pieces. I sewed elastic into the ends so that the sleeves would fit snugly around my wrists.

Here’s me holding the Dremel inside the box; you can see a bit of the sleeve that I’m not using (because I’m busy taking the picture). A very clear view into the box!

I taped down the lid of the box with duct tape, making sure to work the tape around the edges so no dust could escape. I used one of the too-skinny sleeves for the vacuum and the Dremel holes. For the vacuum I took a piece of no longer needed sump pump hose to connect the box to our upright vacuum attachment (which is a pole that would be a real challenge to connect easily…but now that I write this maybe not…hmm…idea!). I taped the hose into the hole and covered the inside of it with a piece of floor vent filter (lest I inadvertently drop something and suck it out of the box). I wiggled the Dremel tool into the box and found that I was able to tie the end of the long sleeve around the cord - effectively stopping any escape route for the sanding dust. The vacuum made a terrific whistling sound when I tested it and desperately tried to suck out my shower-curtain-liner sleeves.

Once I got some keys inside and the vacuum turned on I was ready to go. Very quickly the filter was clogged with resin bits and my sleeves were puffed up as if I was filling them with air (I’m not really sure why that happened). I took the filter off the vacuum. I switched to a different Dremel bit. The vacuum sucked up a small worn out sanding attachment. I decided I didn’t need the vacuum on while I was sanding. I switched to a finer sander and got my hands covered in dust. I decided that wearing gloves would be a good idea. Most importantly of all - the dust was all contained in the sanding box and it was very easy to see what I was doing. I managed to sort out many key-resining mistakes. I declared my creation a success! Hurray for the little victories in life!

I spent a fair bit of time sanding and then adding even more resin to Keys 1932 - 1934. They were so much better before I tried to make a thicker resin coating. They are very crude and still have some rough spots. It feels like I’m going backwards with this work. There were several times when I almost abandoned these keys (especially Key 1932). Perhaps I could make a case for the deeper meaning of the keys just reflecting the rough times the world is going through and how underneath it all lies treasure…nah! 5000 is a big number and I keep getting sidetracked into other things…so these keys will count. No matter how overworked, no matter how ugly, it all counts. All I can do is keep going. All I can do is keep count and do better on the next one.