Metal Sculpture & Carvings

No forge work in this but an enjoyable job anyhow. Hitachi maintain the local high speed trains & got in touch to commission an origami style red crested crane for their 10 year anniversary of providing the service. Pretty tricky as it goes to make an anatomically accurate & interesting origami style animal from sheet steel, but chuffed with how it turned out. Very tight deadline so designed, fabricated, weatherproofed & installed within 14 days. Featured on local news last night & supposedly I got a mention as they had a filmed press unveiling, but I missed it.

Spirit of the Land Festival. Held in Lockhart, New South Wales, Australia each October. Some of the best sculptors in the country had work here. Enjoy the pictures. Andrew Whitehead (Scrapartoz) is the sculptor of the ram and working dogs and horse. Coins are "Two Up Coins", a game played each year on Anzac Day, our most important day for remembering Australian soldiers who fought/died in wars. These are similar to ones my brothers made. Just beautiful and they span very well.. Great wind veins.. If you want any other information, let me know Best two day metal festival in Australia and a country (bush) region event.

Introducing TIGER! Here is my second sculpture, finally finished after several months work. Recently our dog died (Tiger) and I had been working on doing a sculpture of him. When he got sick I decided to get it done before he died.. Alas I did not make it. But here he is, now complete. I am only a newcomer to making metal sculptures and am pretty happy with how he has worked out.. I still have a LOT to learn, and Tiger certainly put me in the deep end when it came to his structure and construction. A tribute to my husband's loyal farm dog.. Also pictured is my first sculpture... This is Zeppi the schnauzer.. I did this one when my parents di…

Hope everyone is doing well here. Been a while since I stopped by. I finished up a big underwater sculpture not long ago and titled it Chesapeake as I am near the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. It stands 8 ft at its tallest. I had a great time putting it all together. Check out the pics

Hi there, forums! This'll be my first post on this site, so please let me know if I'm putting this topic in the wrong place. I'm an aspiring artist blacksmith who's currently studying abroad at the Duncan Of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, in Dundee. I've never made damascus before, but I've decided I'd like to start experimenting with mosaic patterns. Unfortunately, I'm not terribly knowledgable about steel alloys, and I don't know what steels I should be purchasing for low-carbon decorative damascus, since all the information I've found has been in the context of bladesmithing. On top of that, I don't really know any of the metal suppliers in the UK…

Finally took the plunge and got set up to forge metal this spring. I've been working metal for a while, but never over an anvil. A friend commissioned this anniversary gift, and I finally got it finished. It's a waterfall trellis, about 68" tall made mostly of 1/2" square bar.

OK, Frosty, I decided to have a try at a moose head. Now don't laugh - remember I have never seen a moose! Seems to me from the photos, a moose has a very bulbous head, and perhaps I overdid it a bit. I forged it from the one piece of steel (as we do for bull and ram heads) but it didn't give me much to work with for the horns (antlers?). Started with 12mm square bar and they look a bit thin. Might be better to shape the antlers separately and then add them to the head. That would allow easy forging of some ears too. Next time perhaps. I mounted it on a horse shoe to make a wall hook of sorts. Anyway, here's the effort. Next one will be better. Suggestions welc…

For no other reason that the idea was in my head, I decided to have a try at a real rough, grungy, piece of welded scrap. This was the end result! What do you think, Guys?

All, I have tried to find information about texturing both sides of a leaf for a big project I am starting (mailbox post for my house) but I have come up empty. I decided to upload to the hive mind to solve my problem. I want the design to be visible from multiple sides and, this, would like my leaves to look "real" on both sides. This has proven difficult to do. When I add texture to one side I obviously damage the design on the other. I have tried using a stump as an anvil for the second side but I get fire, smoke and limited ooomph in striking. I've also tried scalloping the leaf in order to get some sort of shape into the other side but it still lacks life.…

Couldn't post this in the files, chisels, etc forum so trying under general: To answer the question: What is a rasptlesnake? a bit of a progression shot and my dead truck...

Rooting through my ironwork photos and came across an 'early Turley.' The trammel was made to show at the 1976 ABANA conference held in Carbondale, Illinois. I got the idea from a Japanese trammel that a friend showed me. He acquired it from Gumps in San Francisco. I designed the fish which has a broadened back with a hole through it for the sliding vertical. This makes for a friction stop. I also added the double-running scroll. The pot hook I pretty much copied from the original. The University Galleries at Southern Illinois University acquired the trammel for their permanent collection. You lift the fish's head for height adjustment. Material is wrought iron.

Sometimes you can pick up a piece of junk and it looks like something just waiting to be made into a sculpture. I came across this thing (no idea what it is) yesterday and I reckon it would make one angry looking guard dog. A few teeth welded into that square mouth, some claws added to the legs and that would be a fearsome 2-ton junk yard dog. What do you reckon, Das, - a possibility??

Recently my dad (Bearded guy) introduced me to some of the awesome work on this website and it inspired me to try some of the ideas on my own. I did 99% of the work, welding and ideas my dad helped very little. My dad let me raid his junk pile for some ideas on some critters. He said y'all loved photos so here are some critters. also any advice would be greatly appreciated. The first thing I made was a weeney dog made from a ratchet, sockets, and bolts. Next I made an iguana out of channel locks and a dirt bike sprocket After that I saw an old chain link and I really wanted to make a horse out of a chain link, channel locks and some bolts Soon after we…

Person wanted a "log" to mount some European mounts on. This is what I came up with. Making die for acorn swage today

I thought it would be an interesting challenge to forge a longhorn bull from a heavy tyre lever. The lever is about 30mm x 10mm and 500mm long. I do not know what sort of steel it is, but as you would expect, it was pretty tough hammering. Takes a very nice polish though. It measures 220mm (8.5 inches) across the horns. Now I have to decide what to do with it. I could turn it into an oversize hat hook I guess. Or maybe the top of a walking stick. One of the visitors to my demo today commented that you would never be able to get it past airport security as hand luggage. I left this one as bare steel; the smaller one in the picture was done with 25mm x 10mm mild, …

Abstract man.

I found a clutch fork in the scrap and it immediately suggested the body of a scorpion. The nippers are a couple of pairs of Wiss snips and a bit of old bike chain makes the tail. Rebar in the forge forms the legs. The third pic is after a clear coat was applied. The sting (Pic 4) is interesting - it's the handle end of a 12" bastard file, and maybe that has just given me an idea for a name for this one.

Made this the other day for my wife. Used an old Honda Magna gas tank.

To paint or not to paint? I usually leave my metal sculptures unpainted but decided to give this mosquito a black finish. The body is a heavy spring tapered in the forge. head is a big bike chain link, wing parts are garden shear blades and angle iron, legs are light reo and the bitey bit is a wood screw. He can stand in two positions, but I like it best in the bite position with the rear legs swept upwards, as they do. Here he is:

Been making a few praying mantids (or mantises if you like) so I thought it was time to make a big guy. This one stands 650 mm high. The body is a shaft from my son's Nissan race car gearbox, which makes the whole thing quite weighty. Took a bit of slogging in the forge to taper the end a bit. The front legs are made from a combination of bolts, flattened chain links and motorcycle sprocket pieces. Legs are rebar. Here he is (with a few of his smaller mates):

For sometime I have just had the cards we attach to tourist stuff in a plastic holder. I had a thought today that in a forge plastic wasn't really appropriate. I make a lot of these shifty lizards so this one has become a card holder. I usually lock up the adjuster by flattening the thread in the forge, but this one is left adjustable so that as cards are removed, it can tighten up the pack. I only made it today and it has already had some comment from visitors. Should have made him ages ago!

I don't know if you would call this metal sculpture or carvings. Maybe metal bending. These are standard dinner forks heated in the forge and then wrapped around a 25mm diameter pipe. They make great napkin rings. Well, different anyway. Op shops are a good source of old forks. You can make a set of six all with the same pattern on the handle or a mixed bunch like these:

I guess we have all used those ridiculous self-adjusting wrenches which would be best described as knuckle busters. I have found a use for them - they make interesting lizards. I make lots of 'shifty lizards' from shifting spanners and they have a friendly look to them, but the teeth on these things give them an angry appearance. I made one with the tool the right way up and the other (left) upside down. I have kept them simple - just the spanners, a bit of reo for the legs and garden fork tines for the tails. Someone commented that I should forge a frog or some small animal to go in the jaws.

Never give up little fly, never give up!

Here is the start of an Armadillo. last night I forged the claws and started the ears out of pipe. tonight I started assembling the head. still a long way to go and I really underestimated how much bicycle chain I had. I will have to hunt down more. The legs will be valve springs. the rest of the head is a steering u joint and some large valve keepers and some sort of cutter blade. More to be added there as well. I have some tin to shape so that I can weld the chain from the backside for the body. I will cross my fingers that it turns out well.it helps that I picked up a chain buster in my travels. tho it dosnt work on the gear chain I plan on using for the joints in it's…