There was one problem, the Fremont Solstice Dial only gave interesting shadows. It did not tell the time. The solid conic disks eclipsed the shadow of the gnomon on the equinox disk during part of each season. That problem was solved by opening up the ribbon disks during their day portions and putting in hour bars. The solution is not perfect, there are extraneous shadows cast by the day portions of the ribbon cones on the time scale during parts of the year. However, by running one's hand along the gnomon, the important shadow can be ascertained, allowing the others to be ignored. An interesting bit of geometry also appears. The top edges of the night portions of the cones point to the directions of the solstice sunrises and sunsets.
In this photo, the right-hand blue cone ribbon edge points to the winter solstice sunrise, the yellow edge points to the summer solstice sunrise. The left-hand edges point to the solstice sunsets.
Bill Gorr, whom I know from the Alger Market where he vends his steel lawn art, used his crab pot metal bar rolls to form all the rings needed for the new dial. I had been dragging around a gifted, very heavy-duty, press frame for thirty years and a neighbor, Lisle Brown, had a 20-ton jack. These were combined to develop a metal press capable of making the bends on the pedestal. Cutters, Inc. used my drawing to waterjet cut the stainless steel equinox disk. Corbell's Welding did the sandblast and primer on the mild steel fabrications.
Woody Sullivan had seen my early drawing of a simple foundation and reminded me that since I claimed that the dial gave interesting shadows, I should show them. The foundation became much more complicated, difficult to fabricate, and much more interesting and educational.
A neighbor, John Wade, saved my bacon by stepping in after he had seen the model and said he would help. He straightened me out on what I needed in a foundation and then coordinated George Jay, Dave Rostykus and myself during the fabrication of forms and the multiple concrete pours.
The Memento Strip
The community was asked to donate mementos to be placed around the dial foundation, as was done around the bronze casting in the nearby labyrinth. My daughter drew in items on the base of the model and I was surprised at how many people asked about the memento ring. It seems there were more questions about that perimeter than there were about the dial itself.
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