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I Forge Iron

Forged sculpture


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Here's an example of some of my experimenting. I took a 2" schedule 80 pipe and necked it down on a power hammer, teaching a student to make a candlestick holder. The result looked like the end of a scorpions tail...so I just kept going. With the remainder of the pipe I made the spider and Mig'ed on some hair. I mounted the two on a piece of Black Walnut about 50" long. I haven't finished yet. I want to forge a cactus with a copper flower on top to put in between the two. (I love insects and arachnids as sculptural forms...they're like little aliens all around us!!)

So what do some of my fellow smiths think?

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The OA dimensions of the black walnut: 54" X 18" (depth approx. 4")

The Scorpion: 16"L X 14"W X 13"H (31" from tip of tail to claws). I added rebar to the body of the scorpion to give it more heft after flattening the body.

The spider: 12"L X 14.5"W X 7" H (The spiders abdomen is the original size of the parent stock)

Below is my "interpretation of a" preying mantis (17"L X 13"W X 10"H)

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The power hammer tooling was nothing special. I used a radiused die set to neck down the pipe. I continued hammering with the radiused dies until I pinched off the tail. (That was when it began to look like a scorpions stinger.) When I got to the body I used flat dies to flatten it out. Then I used 1/4" round stock to indent the segments on the body.

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