20111216 rearviewsurfshop boardsandbox

This view of the main room of the surf shop shows some of the shop's finest boards displayed in a custom-made sandbox. My daughter, chief architect on this project, had a sandbox display area in mind for the beginning, but figuring out how to achieve that so it would be appealing to a tiny customer, visible and understandable to us as viewers, functional, (and don't forget economical!) was a challenge.<div><br></div><div>After some trial and error it was obvious that any structure with solid-looking sides made that sand in the sandbox almost pointless, as it wasn't clear what it was without having to explain it. So <i>clear</i> it was!&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>It took a while to get the right clear plastic to flex in and out of the amoeba-like shape we wanted... and a while more to figure out what adhesives could keep the thing from flying apart... and last but not least, a while longer to figure out what structure could hold these three boards in the display invisibly, so that they almost seem to hold themselves up. But the end result is pretty darned striking, so I can say (after the fact!) that it was worth it.</div><div><br></div><div>Should you want to try something similar, the plastic which worked best is the thin stuff that often forms the lid of boxes of holiday cards; the main form is made of thin styrofoam; the plastic is adhered to the styrofoam form with GE Silicone Adhesive, a real lifesaver many times when you're dealing with plastic in mini, but it is adhered to itself (at vertical seams) with Krazy Glue, because various plastic adhesives we tried either wouldn't hold or looked nasty after drying. Krazy Glue was the closest to invisible that we could find.</div>