Shadowboard

A shadow board is one of the most common options for tool storage found in amateur and professional workshops and sheds the world over. Its noble aim is to organize the workplace so that tools are near the work station where they are to be used.

Work in progress on the easel
E135A 'Shadowboard - No Brake' 2017
oil on metal panel 51 x 51cm
Available

Shadow boards have the outlines of a work station's tools marked on them, so operators can quickly identify which tools are in use or missing.

As well as providing easy access to tools,they are supposed to reduce time spent searching for the correct tool; to reduce losses due to carelessness, lack of proper maintenance or theft; to improve work station safety as tools are replaced safely after use, rather than becoming potential hazards; to reduce clutter; and to maximize the space available.

Work in progress on the easel
E135A 'Shadowboard - No Brake' 2017
oil on metal panel 51 x 51cm
Available

Well that was the Platonic ideal anyway.

The dream of imposing order on chaos is often cruelly exposed as exactly that - a dream, when reality kicks in.

How should a shadowboard be organized?

Sounds so easy and straightforward, but it reveals fundamental and often irreconcilable differences in temperament, age and level of expertise, and can be the source of perpetual bickering, even long-running feuds.

Work in progress on the easel
E135A 'Shadowboard - No Brake' 2017
oil on metal panel 51 x 51cm
Available

Should it be organized by type of tool (all spanners, screwdrivers etc grouped together), by size (aesthetically pleasing to have a hierarchy of tools descending by size, but not necessarily the most practical), by frequency of use (commonly used tools in the middle where they are easily removed or replaced) by ease of removal /replacement (large, awkwardly sized or heavy tools placed where people don't have to reach up or down for them) or by what is required for common tasks (a particular size of wrench/saw/hammer/screwdriver etc are often needed together for a task that crops up frequently).

Sometimes it can even be a passive-aggressive wish list, like a recent commercial for a hardware line of products where empty outlines were left for needed or desired tools, either in hope of a future financial windfall or thoughtful gift.

E135B'Shadowboard with 44 class diesel
-(Do not pull all way out) '
2017 oil on metal panel 51 x 51cm
Available

The usual result is a hotch potch of all the above.

Jumble of the useful, the once useful and now obsolete, the broken bits, the spare parts that 'may come in handy'; the lost, strayed and some frankly useless items that seem to breed unchecked in dark corners. When, if ever, were any of these used? Last week? Last century?

Work in progress on the easel
E135B'Shadowboard with 44 class diesel
-(Do not pull all way out) '
2017 oil on metal panel 51 x 51cm
Available

I used metal panels to paint on instead of my usual canvas, leaving the metal bare when the tool was shiny and well maintained, and only painting the non-metallic or rusty parts. The work above also includes a 44 class diesel lurking in the background.

The faded, naive lettering found on cryptic signs create abstract yet evocative grids of letters and word fragments, colour and text fading into meditative, elegiac compositions.

Other mysteries abound. As this is a workshop filled with tools and presumably people who know how to use them, why did someone bother to write "Do not pull all way out" on the drawers of the cabinet beneath, instead of fixing the drawer?

I'm no handyperson, but even I can fix drawers - it's fiddly but not that hard.

E135A 'Shadowboard - No Brake' 2017
oil on metal panel 51 x 51cm
Available

A massive Marie Kondo attack has been carried out in the Large Erecting Shop to tackle decades of clutter. Nothing to do with sparking joy.

Everything deemed not strictly necessary to the re-purposing of the Large Erecting Shop as a running shed is being given the old heave-ho - best case scenario sent to Thirlmere, worst case - the skip.

I was chased from one end of the shed to the other, as wherever I set up my easel, I seemed to get in the way. I was hunting for a quiet corner as the situation brought out crankiness in normally laid back people. I was incessantly asked "why I was painting this rubbish instead of the trains", but most of the trains will still exist somewhere, while this sort of subject, evoking the true spirit of the workshop, is ephemeral.

But fashions change as to what is deemed 'necessary' and unique and quirky items can be lost or destroyed in the rush to impose order on chaos..

In the Large Erecting Shop the shadowboards are no longer functional as no repair or maintenance will be carried out there.

Ghost boards with ghost signs for ghost trains.

They show the never to be filled outlines of lost tools for lost purposes.

Headstones of the workshop.

More paintings of the Eveleigh Railway Workshops

Related Posts

Ghost Train

Ghost in the machine

Scar Tissue

Painting in the paint shop - The Green Room

The slow return from the fire

The fire within

The empty mask- Edwin Davey and Sons Flour Mill, Pyrmont

Built in 1896, the Edwin Davey and Sons Flour Mill was the last and one of the longest operating flour mills operating in inner Sydney.
The main building was a 4 storey brick flour mill in the utilitarian Federation Free Classical architectural style, with rectangular window openings and a corrugated iron roof behind a plain parapet.
The north facade had a large triangular pediment bearing the business name "Edwin Davey and Sons". On the western side, an extension built out to the cliff line. There was a rail siding from the old Metropolitan Goods Line on the northern side, below the escarpment with some remaining wheat elevation gear and corrugated iron clad extensions at the back of the mill.
By the time of these paintings from the early 2000s, the interior had long been gutted of any machinery and there are obvious horizontal bands of bracing girdling the exterior facade and keeping its last few bricks from falling onto the cars below.

P263A 'Edwin Davey Flour Mill'
2012 oil on board 26 x 38cm
Available
Until the 1860s the Ultimo end of the Pyrmont peninsula was still an undeveloped grazing property owned by Surgeon John Harris and his heirs.
In 1895, 10 lots of Block 42 of the Harris Estate was bought by Freeman and Sons, producers of a large range of household goods, who built a flour mill on the site.
In 1900 Edwin Davey, who already owned mills in South Australia, bought the Ultimo Roller Mills, to produce flour for export, as freight costs from Sydney were better than in Adelaide.

P100 Demolition of the Fielder Gillespie Flour Mills 2
1992 oil on paper 75 x 100cm
Available
The Ultimo Mill went into production in 1901 under the name Chanticleer Flour and operated until 1992, when it became part of Weston Milling Ltd. As the Ultimo mill was small and old fashioned, it was closed, gutted and sold for development.
By coincidence, about the same time, over the opposite side of Pyrmont Peninsula, Fielder Gillespie Flour Mills, next to the Pyrmont Power Station, was also being demolished. After a few weeks the Fielder Gillespie site was completely cleared and remained empty space until eventual redevelopment as a Woolworths and various other shops and offices. By contrast, the ghostly skeleton of the Edwin Davey and Sons building haunted the western edge of Pyrmont for a generation.


P263 'Edwin Davey Flour Mill'
2012 oil on paper 13 x 23cm
Available
By 2001 the building had been reduced to a wafer thin shell of bricks propped up in front of a weedy wasteland.
My painting above shows the interior of the facade, criss-crossed with bracing and scribbled over with cryptic graffiti.

The empty mask formerly known as the Edwin Davey and Sons flour mill was for almost 30 years a landmark for anyone driving to or from Pyrmont over the Anzac Bridge.It was demolished and replaced by an apartment block, with a small shed cantilevered on the western facade.

It lights up at night in a token gesture to the former building's existence.

Related posts

Painting Pyrmont - Sydney Living Museums

Wrong side of the tracks - Darling Island Bond and Free

Black cat of Union Square

Looking over the overlooked

We like sheep

Pyrmont sandstone - The lizards of Oz

To the Point

The wheels on the bus go round and round - Painting the London Bus at the Sydney Bus Museum

Today's painting on the deck gallery is another canvas painted at the Bus Museum in September 2017.

BUS 7 London bus' 2017
oil on canvas 51 x 25.5cm
Available

The London bus is having its wheels checked.

On the easel at Sydney Bus Museum
BUS 7 London bus' 2017
oil on canvas 51 x 25.5cm
Available

After World War II, London Transport bought over 6,000 double deckers, all built to a standardized design, mostly the AEC Regent III RT type, similar to the pre-war AEC buses.
The first prototype, known as the AEC Routemaster, was completed in September 1954 and the last one was delivered in 1968.
The first Routemasters entered service with London Transport in February 1956 and the last withdrawn from regular service in December 2005, although one heritage route still operates in central London. The Routemaster outlasted several of its replacements in London, and even survived the privatization of the London Transport bus operators .

BUS 7A  Study for London Bus,

Sydney Bus Museum

2019 oil on canvas 23 x 13cm
Available
BUS 7 London bus' 2017
oil on canvas 51 x 25.5cm
Available
In front of my patient model
at Sydney Bus Museum

The Routemaster had a pioneering design using lightweight aluminium and techniques developed in aircraft production during World War II. It also introduced innovative design features such as independent front suspension, power steering, a fully automatic gearbox and power-hydraulic braking, for the first time ever on a bus. Drivers found the Routemaster surprisingly light and nimble compared with earlier designs.

One of their main advantages was that the body could be lifted off the chassis during overhaul.The London fleet contained more bodies than chassis, as overhauling the body took longer than the chassis. A bus could go in for overhaul in the morning, and come out that afternoon with a different body.
In 2006, the Routemaster was voted one of Britain's top 10 design icons which included Concorde, Mini, London tube map, World Wide Web and the K2 telephone box.

BUS 7A  Study for London Bus,

Sydney Bus Museum

2019 oil on canvas 23 x 13cm

Available

This was my first much smaller study of the London bus

The Museum's bus, AEC RT - 3708, was registered NLE-815, and started life in May 1953 with a 'green' Weymann 8545 body, the most common type.

I don't know what it is about the colour, but I can't imagine a London bus in any other colour than red. Must make it go faster!

It had 3 overhauls during its London Transport career - in 1956, 1961, and it didn't get fitted with the iconic 'red' body until its final overhaul in 1965.

It ended its days at Southall garage, then was sold in March 1977, imported to Australia in 1984 and purchased by the Museum in 1989.

BUS 7 London bus' 2017

oil on canvas 51 x 25.5cm

Available

All information is courtesy of the experts of the Sydney Bus Museum

Related posts

The Manly bus

Sydney Bus Museum - painting Daimler doubledecker

Terminus Redux

I have mixed feelings about the renovation of the Terminus.
Although it's been restored,not demolished or replaced by apartment blocks as so often happens, it has been stripped of its poetry.

P286A 'Terminus Redux'
2017-8 ink, charcoal on paper 131 x 106cm
Enquiries : janecooperbennett@gmail.com
I painted a large mixed media work on paper, as well as an even larger oil on canvas, just before the iconic vines were removed. The awning had been stripped back to a fragile skeleton, but the bricks had yet to be sand-blasted.
However well a place is renovated, inevitably there must be compromises between keeping the original character and making it a viable business.
No expense was spared on the fitout.The designers and architects have done their best to restore the old pub building while retaining quite a lot of the original pub from tiles to timber. The pressed metal ceiling upstairs is a sympathetic replacement not the original, which was too badly damaged.

P286 'Terminus Redux'
2017-8 oil on canvas 122 x 183cm

Enquiries -janecooperbennett@gmail.com

I miss the vine-covered facade. It had probably been planted early in the 20th century by a CSR employee, as the same species of Virginia creeper covered the manager's residence and the courtyard of the 'Rum Store'.
Recently I attended the launch of Shirley Fitzgerald's wonderful book on the history of the Terminus. I was honoured that Shirley had asked me to contribute a photo of one of my paintings of the Terminus facing opposite its longtime companion and rival, the Pyrmont Point Hotel (aka the Royal Pacific).

P252 'The Terminus and the Point'
2011 oil on canvas 31 x 61cm
Private Collection : Sydney
Enquiries : janecooperbennett@gmail.com
When I went upstairs, I almost walked into one of the walls, not from one too many cocktails, but because I'd expected the hall that once led through to the building next door. I believe this passageway had to be closed off due to updated fire regulations.
A typical pub menu, priced rather steeply, cashes in on the hipster ambience from the 32 years that the Terminus spent as an icon of urban decay.
As a contrast, when I'd visited the Terminus prior to its closure in the early 1980s, they were giving out free food. Possibly this had contributed to its original decline and fall.
The new owners aren't making that mistake, quite the opposite.

Ironically despite having kept the ghost sign outside, no Resch's is on tap.

For more information about the Terminus and Pyrmont Point Hotels

see My Pyrmont page in this blog

Related posts
Looking over the overlooked-Urban decay in Pyrmont
To the Point
Wrong side of the tracks - Darling Island Bond and Free

Pretty vacant  

A Tale of two hotels - the Terminus and the Point

The bad twin of Pyrmont Street

Pyrmont Paintings past and present 
Paintings of Pink pubs - Painting the Jolly Frog Part 2

Steady rest

I've been painting the machinery in the William Wallbank and Sons ex- foundry in Auburn, before it is all stripped out and sent to a scrap metal yard.

Work in progress -

AWW8 'Boys toys -Steady rest 1'

oil on steel press plate tondo 16 x 16cm 2017

Available 

I've been painting a series of still life studies on salvaged "press plates".

These leftover circles of mild steel were found lying on the machine shop floor, and were being gathered up to be thrown away.

AWW8 'Boys toys -Steady rest 1'

oil on steel press plate tondo 16 x 16cm 2017

Available 

It was fascinating painting the relics of industry on salvaged objects that were part of the waste product from that industry.

The lustre of the smooth metallic surface shows through every brushstroke, reproducing every sparkle, shine and glimmer of the knobs and finials.

Work in progress - AWW11

'Boys toys -Steady rest 2'

oil on steel press plate tondo 16 x 16cm 2017

Available

Although the William Wallbank foundry dated from 1932, some of the machinery was much older. I found a nameplate on one from "Russia", which meant that it must have dated from before the Soviet era, and probably from before World War I.

AWW11 'Boys toys -Steady rest 2'

oil on steel press plate tondo 16 x 16cm 2017

Available 

The steady rest on a lathe, has a frame and 3 adjustable jaws to support a workpiece such as an axle or a shaft while it is being turned, milled or drilled.

It prevents slender, flexible pieces springing back and forth, and also allows deep cuts, drilling, boring, or internal threading.

Work in progress on the easel -

AWW10 'Boys toys -Boring machine'

oil on steel press plate tondo 16 x 16cm 2017

Available 

The over arm with the top jaw can be unfastened and swung out of the way so that pieces can be removed and replaced without needing to adjust the jaws.

There should be 0.001 inch clearance between the jaws and the workpiece.

The bearing surface is usually machined directly on the work.

AWW10 'Boys toys -Boring machine'

oil on steel press plate tondo 16 x 16cm 2017

Available 

When the work is too small or awkwardly shaped to machine the bearing surface, a 'cathead' can provide the bearing surface.

The cathead has a bearing that is surfaced, a hole through which the work extends, and adjusting screws to fasten the cathead to the work.

Work in progress on the easel -

AWW9 'Boys toys -Control'

oil on steel press plate tondo 16 x 16cm 2017

Available 

When it isn't possible to hold the work in the chuck, one end can be supported by the headstock centre and the other by the steady rest.

A leather strap or rawhide thong is used to tie the work to the driveplate and to prevent it from moving off the headstock centre.

Work in progress on the easel -

AWW9 'Boys toys -Control'

oil on steel press plate tondo

16 x 16cm 2017

Available 

After the locking screws on the adjustable jaws are tightened, the bearing surface needs lubrication with heavy oil before turning on the lathe.

Work in progress on the easel -

AWW9 'Boys toys -Control'

oil on steel press plate tondo

16 x 16cm 2017

Available 

The bearing surface and adjustable jaws always need a heavy oil film between them, as when the workpiece heats up it will expand, closing the distance between it and the jaws.

AWW9 'Boys toys -Control' 2017

oil on steel press plate tondo 16 x 16cm

Available

Related posts

Rust Bucket

Scar Tissue

Wrong side of the tracks - Darling Island Bond and Free

All fired up

Eveleigh - Industrial heritage artist at work

Irons in the fire

White Bay Power Station - Inside Out

Power Base - Artist in Residence at the White Bay Power Station