It is an exciting time in our lives as our family of two will now expand to three. Our baby boy’s expected due date is on 26/02/18 and his name is Nalu, meaning ocean wave in Hawaiian. In this time we can’t help but plan our near and far future and our sense of sustainability and efforts to save this planet are stronger than ever before. Perhaps it was due to this that made me also think of our past travels and a heartbreaking sight of the ocean filled with one use plastic items. I thought to myself, that my first handmade gift and lesson to my son must be in an effort to teach him about preserving our nature. So I made him silver straw with an interlocking spoon to enjoy drinking and eating a young coconut when travelling. I also made one for his dad (my partner Tie) just because he is awesome and I made one for myself. My straw will be going with me to a hospital to assist me with hydrating during the labour.
The process of making these straws/spoons went as follows.
1 – design. Decide on a shape of the spoon to fit well in small child’s mouth yet to scrap enough young coconut flesh from
the coconut shell.
2 – mark the spoon shape on to acrylic and cut out the matrix die to be used in the hydraulic press. Document all the progress thoroughly for future while pressing the shapes.
3 – Cut out spoon shapes and solder the chenier component that will become the catch locking with the straw component.
4 – solder two mirrored spoons with a spacer wall in between together to form mate straw.
5 – when all the cheniers are soldered in position mark where the cut out needs to be and CUT!
Then the fitting game starts……keep checking and removing bit by bit slowly and patiently until both parts (spoon and straw) nicely twist into each other and firmly stay.
6 – to reinforce the spoon catch (as the wall thickness is very thin) I soldered another chenier on the inside
(fitted very well, of course). Then I have refitted both components together again.
7- electro-etch name and hallmark plates. Electroetching is my favourite way of marking a metal without using nasty chemicals.
This is very important in my practice, especially now, when I am pregnant.
8 – straw components – solder name and hallmark plate on.
9 – emery and finish all components to required finish.
10 – finished and ready to be tested!!!!
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