New Design for the Planters

The new model for our Magnetic Planters—basically just using a paper mache technique. Darren figured this one out, and after some testing, it looks like this is the strongest and easiest planter we can make! We did more research last Friday to get to this point, but we’re happy to have come up with a really workable solution.

There was lots to catch up on, with things having been really busy since Intersession started up at the University. The sticks on the table are from a project being done by Robert Wiens for the Open Corridor festival.

We were on a mission though—we wanted to finalize a recipe and method for the planters so we could get this project finished in the next couple of weeks.

So, back to the paper pulp recipe.

The first batch we made was too pulped and not sticky enough, despite Michelle’s best efforts on the blender.

This is how it turned out, too mushy.

Josh, Darren, and Michelle tried to work with it though.

The first efforts were to try to make a large sheet.

We put all of our scrub pads together and tried to lay some pulp on top.

It wasn’t really helping and the pulp wasn’t sticking together very well.

Josh tried to use a piece of wood to remove water from the pulp.

But it wouldn’t work.

It was too wet and wasn’t sticking together, so it was pretty useless to get onto the frames we were using for the planters.

I tried to capture all the action.

Michelle and Josh went back to using one scrub pad at a time.

Josh and Michelle worked to make some sheets of pulp to wrap around the molds.

Meanwhile, we also started testing a planter made in previous weeks to ensure that it would hold up to rain.

Darren made a video of the entire process.

Josh repaired some planters from last week.

Michelle also tried to patch up some planters that were already dried.

Here’s all the planters from the last few weeks. I think we’re going to hold off on putting magnets in these, since we’ve now come up with a better design. Eventually though, when we get some more magnets, it will probably be worth putting these up.

Darren worked with wheat paste, newspaper strips and some wax.

His technique is simple and ultimately worked the best.

Here’s the resulting planter after it dried.

And after a day with the planter filled with water (and slowly drained), it held up well. So, this is going to be what we move forward with on Friday and hopefully get a number of planters up around the city next week!!!