Solar Cooking Archive Discussion Forums

SharonID · Joined: 24 Jun 2007 Posts: 74 Location: northern Idaho

More cloth and glue. (Of Moose and Glue Continues....)

So (speaking of the undesirability of dipping cloth in glue, when it's already after 4am and you're tired and hoarse from moose-chasing), I thought about it for a bit, then got out one of my trusty sponge brushes (I love these for spreading glue or paint on cardboard) and put a nice, relatively thick (more than for foil, but not dripping) layer of glue down on the relevant sections of cardboard, took my beautiful, nicely cut and ironed piece of cloth (a cotton print of blue sky and clouds), got it as centered and lined up as I could without touching, and went for it. It went on very easily and it was much easier to get it nice and tight with no bubbles or wrinkles. I used a wad of paper towel to burnish and smooth it down, then painted a nice, even, thick coat of glue on top of the fabric, making sure it was enough to saturate it. When that was dry to the touch, I added one more coat of slightly watered glue on the parts where I'd double-spread instead of dipped.

It looks great. Even the parts I dipped look good, and the sides of the bottom part of the box, which were all done by the under-and-over method, look totally sharp. And it's so cute. I found this cotton fabric with cute little smiling cartoon-y suns on it that I could cut out for trim, so the top half, done in the cloud/sky print, has smiling suns in the center of the front, top, and sides. The bottom half has a nice little print of ladybugs and daisies on a blue background. Maybe I'll call it The Happy Sunshine Cooker! Wink

It is going to live on an organic truck farm, to feed a woman I love and respect more than I can say. I don't know anybody who lives more righteously than Elizabeth, or works harder, and she's too tired at the end of the day to cook much, even without being in mourning. Once she gets the hang of throwing a few things in a pot in the morning and setting it out in her new oven, with that lovely reward of a warm meal when you're too tired to cook one, I think she'll be hooked. It is just the perfect little (but not too little) cooker for her small farm.

It's an amazing thing, this cooker. I get tears in my eyes watching the whole thing tigten up as the glue dries on the fabric. Wow. If you'd told me a year ago that I'd be able to crank out something like that all by myself, I wouldn't have believed it. Thank you SCA! Thank you Tom and Chao! Here's hoping the beeswax trip goes as well as the cloth gluing and painting (I painted the outer bottom surface with several coats of exterior latex that I got for free). This cooker rocks! Cool

Regards,
SharonID... sending roses to Tom and Chao--->> @-->-->- @-->-->-
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Idaho Regional Representative, International Women's Writing Guild
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