The forest comes to us....

Our construction crew has spent the last couple weeks installing beams on the developing structure of our new building. Walking past the site these past few days conjures images of old forest.

The Garbage derby wrapped up last weekend with Jamie's Whaling station taking home the trophy for most garbage collected by a business. Jesse Vedova, one of Jamie's' drivers, towed in a freezer and filled it with collected garbage, fishing floats and other oceanic debris. Matt Harbidge and Kane Edwards collected together to bring home the individual prize. These two drove out to a remote beach in the sound where dogwalkers, runners and beach combers can't add their efforts to keeping it clean. Thank you so much for your efforts!

Thanks also to Zoe Jewell, and Jordan Odney for your help, and to Garth Grimes, Seamus Little, Jason Hasz and Keanna Hasz for your efforts!!!

JCP crew goes to Vancouver Aquarium

We had three days of fun and useful information, half of the time for travel and the other half for inspiration at the Vancouver Aquarium. We started off our morning at Vanaqua with an orientation and behind the scenes look of the facility led by Danny Kent, Curator of B.C. Waters. We were all amazed by the complexities of the plumbing systems. None of us are plumbers by trade so looking at the plumbing of a large aquarium was a lot to take in.

We asked to meet with the carpentry department to see if they had any suggestions that may be useful in building and finishing our supports properly. Danny directed us down to the depths of the basement where the wood shop is located. . We were greeted by Ken Sulivan (Ken on the right) head of the carpentry department. He gave us some great suggestions on what type of leveling feet they have found work well on the bases of the tanks.

Ken showing us some hardware that they have used for leveling feet

The afternoon was spent walking around the galleries of the aquarium. The Vancouver Aquarium is a very amazing place. Here are some of the rad specimens we got to check out!

Bonus points to who can tell us the name of this tropical sea creature!

Daisy the Porpoise

Day two at Van Aqua was spent with Bryan Kent. He showed us on the computer the steps taken to go through to make fake rock that looks real. Basically Bryan started with a scaled down box and made the rock formation he was looking for out of plasticine. He then takes that plan to a company that specializes in artificial rock work to build it for him. Here are the before and after shots.

Before with Plastisine model

After in finished concrete display immediately after rock work was complete

Bryan also took us around for some more behind the scenes look at displays.

Bryan, Jeff and Jonnie checking out the display tank

We had the opportunity to meet with the painter of the Vancouver Aquarium to pick his brain on finishing products that work well in wet environments.

After spending time at the Vancouver Aquarium we are better equipped to create durable wooden structures, and really excited to contribute to the construction of another great aquarium!

2011 JCP Tinkerers

* * * NEWS FLASH * * *

The brainy research squad have been working hard designing the tank stands for the new Aquarium. This handsome crew have been performing diligent calculations to figure out the complex design criteria for the containment systems. The new tank stands will be a timber- frame structure, materials chosen for the tank supports is fir. Fir is a strong and beautiful species and should last for years to come.
The construction will be a lap joint with hardwood doweling to add strength and rigidity. The choice of hardwood doweling is there to keep the stands free of materials that will deteriorate or rust.


As you can see the crew is still working hard to solve the engineering details of our finalized designs.

Having calculated the precise dimensions, volumes and densities of the tanks, substrate and fish the crew was able to accurately estimate the design weights for each display tank.

* * * Stay tuned for more NEWS to come! * * *