Operation Driveway Part 2 - Designing the MC Escher Lizard Pavers

[singlepic=31,320,240,,right] Now that the driveway was graded last weekend, the next step was to figure out what to put on top of it. Last entry, I listed off the quotes I was given for blacktop, a concrete slab, and crushed limestone - all pretty expensive and otherwise lame in my opinion. I was thinking paver stones would be more interesting. Pavers are neat. They have the strength and durability of concrete, but are more resilient to cracking when settling occurs. This is a bonus in my case since I have no idea if our grading job is going to hold up with Minnesota frosts and general settling due to rain and weight from driving on them. If the ground settles, I can just pull them up and throw some more gravel underneath. If one paver cracks, I can replace one rather than an entire slab. With that said, these are more "do it yourself friendly" but are a lot more work to do. Oh well. My main issue against pavers is that they are pretty dull. They only come in a couple varieties and really are not all that sexy. The artist in me wants something more cool. While researching pavers, the word "tessellation" was used - which immediately gave me a crazy idea - do a driveway of an MC Escher work! My first attempt at designing this was a failure. I was working off one of his fish tessellations. It was very angular and the math to figure it out was making my brain hurt. After lots of cut up paper and head scratching, I turned to google to see if anyone had already attempted this. This is when I found John August's Gecko Stone. I ordered one. Sadly, the creator was recovering from surgery and it would be a month to get my order filled plus shipping. One month later (last weekend), I found out it would probably be another month. I feel bad for John, but I need to get this driveway done. I canceled my order and decided to try to do it myself. First, I found a vectorized drawing of the lizard that I threw into photoshop and made sure worked perfectly. Next, I blew it up to around 14 inches in either direction and printed it out to span multiple sheets and taped them together and cut out the shape. I then trimmed off about a quarter inch around the edge to allow for the blocks to shift a bit. Next I traced this onto cardboard and cut out a bunch to do a interlocking proof of concept. Once I knew the shape would tessellate still , it was time to make a clay version of the 3dimensional brick. I picked up a 20lb block of self hardening clay and went to town. 6 hours of munging clay later, I had a pretty slick looking version of the brick. I made it around 3 inches think to be substantial enough for the narrow appendages of the figure to break off. I let this harden over night. The next step was to make a mold. This is where things started to turn into a clusterfuck. I bought a 2gallon Por - a - Mold brand poly urethane mold making kit from Dick Blick (the only place I could find this stuff). After recording the podcast on Sunday (and a few beers), I thought would be a great idea to make the mold. I also thought it would be a good idea to not wear gloves and do this in my kitchen... After a long ordeal that I won't go in to, the worst thing that happened was that a small portion of my mold didn't fully cure because of the mold release pooling at the bottom of my container. Yarg. However, I think the mold is still usable, even if only to make a plaster cast that I can clean up a bit and make a 2nd mold from. Boom. I am hoping next week I will have a 2nd mold made and be cranking bricks out. I'll catch you then. [gallery=4]