We are looking for a metal artist that can fabricate 2 display stands for heavy round ammonites (fossils) .  Does anybody have a recommendation?  Thanks, D. Letsch 

Well I would recommend giving more details:  you probably want someone who can come in person to examine them and discuss how to mount them with you.  Free standing?  Wall mount?   Also is "heavy" 200 pounds or 2000 pounds?     Also what material?  (If you are near saltwater I would advise fusion welded and passivated stainless steel.  Or Monel.  Both are expensive to work with but if done correctly it should be a once in several centuries expense.)

  THAT sounds like a fun project!

Sorry I just saw this thread, I know this is an old thread an the op hasn’t been back in months, I agree with Scott that would be a cool project! 

my mother collects rock, mineral, fossil type stuff

In her collection she has a fossilized shell of some sea critter that has a spiral shell it probably weighs around 150 pounds and about 24” diameter 

I never thought about it till I saw this thread but that thing would look cool on some sort of forged stand with a nautical theme! 

Many gastropods have tentacles, you could forge a stand for her 24" gastropod fossil that extend from the open end of the shell down like tree roots and spread to make a stable stand. Hmmm?

Envision a squid living in a giant snail shell, both of which are in the family Gastropoda.

Frosty The Lucky.

Hey now that’s a pretty slick idea thanks Jerry! 

I was just trying to think of a 20000 leagues kinda theme like a riveted submarine hull with a port hole or something along those lines,

your tentacle table leg idea could work right into that

TW, without seeing it and just from your description your mother's fossil sounds like an ammonite.  It was a critter similar to a modern nautilus.  Frosty's description is very good.  Think short tentacled squid living in a coiled shell.  BTW, the nautilus and ammonites were swimmers.  The shell was hollow and provided flotation.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Thanks for the info George, all I knew was it was a big sea shell lol,

That’s interesting that the shell was hollow

next time I’m over there I’ll get a couple pictures of it so y’all can see what I’m talking about

Ammonite! I knew what I wanted to say but was blanking on the name. You would NOT want to go swimming with even a little 4' cutie around. Apex predators as I recall. 

Frosty The Lucky.

So named because the resemble the rams' horns of the Egyptian god, Ammon (aka Amun).  You will often see them depicted on coins of Alexander the Great.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

6 hours ago, Frosty said:

You would NOT want to go swimming with even a little 4' cutie around

What about the modern ones, are they dangerous to? 

The don't get as large anymore; just like we don't find 12' eurypterids like they had in the Silurian.  (One interesting thing about the giant bugs and arthropods of way back when: it seems that the O2 content was higher in the atmosphere and so that helped out with the cube/square Law issues that prevent them being around today.

Not, unless you're thinking about mollusks like giant squid or octopus, those can ruin a swim. Well I suppose if the Nautilus is being driven by Cap. Nemo you could have a problem. 

I caught a blurb on the news about the world's largest "bug" being found. Seems a slab of sandstone fell off a bluff and revealed the 350mil ybp. fossil of a centipede-like critter 20" wide x 8' long.

Frosty The Lucky.

Good grief that’s a big bug! 

Some caveman probably shoved a rock off the bluff in the first place to squish it! Lol

Caveman? I think the nearest caveman would be somewhere between reptile and proto-mammal but I don't have a book handy to check. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Hmm.. I’m that case maybe Hank Morgan took a wrong turn some where and spent enough time there to shove a rock off on that big bug? 

  I have a decent sized specimen ammonite and one of the things on my list is to make a "tri spike" sculpture holder for it as posted/shown in the sculptures section.

  I wonder how big the cockroaches got, back when those centipedes were terrorizing everything?

  Do you suppose there was a splat sound when the rock landed on that bug!

I dunno Scott, but I’d bet the cockroaches probably had to scurry under giant boulders in those days! And they probably carried off dinosaur eggs! 

 I think a centipede makes more of a crunchy sound lol,

the last one I killed in the shop had got up in a tool roll and scared the living day lights outta me when It ran out of that tool roll! lol 

it was the biggest one I’d ever seen here in eastern Oklahoma, around 4” 1/2” to 5” long,  I didn’t step on it though… Instead I might have roasted that dude with a benzomatic torch…

 

  What did that smell like?

Bahhaha! Sorry Scott,  your comment was the last thing in the world I expected to hear 

To answer your question I don’t know! I was to freaked out at that thing Running out of the tool roll to pay attention to how he smelled when I fried him, lol,

ive used my benzomatic pretty frequently to roast brown recluse and black widow spiders and their egg sacks I’m my shop for years now, and I don’t think I’ve ever smelled them either lol, 

last fall I started the air compressor up one morning and some kinda Spiderzilla wolf spider the size of my hand came running out at me!

I wasn’t about to turn my back on him because I knew that dude was gonna run under something and hide from me, 

And he was between me an my torch so I ended up dispatching him with a full five gallon gas can, 

now he definitely made a splat sound when that hit him! Lol

 

  Just curious on the smell thing, some stuff smells pretty hidious when fried and I thought a bug that big would really stink.    

  Any mom that collects minerals and fossils is pretty cool.  That ammonite I have is polished.  I don't know how they did it but is a nice specimen.  

  Funny, I just had an exterminator tell me yesterday to shake out my boots because brown recluses like to crawl in there.  I HATE spiders... Unless they are made of metal.

I really don’t mind all spiders but I’ve been bit three times over the years by brown recluse spiders and it was not a fun ordeal, I’ve got the scars to prove it, 

Ive never been bit by a black widow but to my understanding it’s pretty painful and I ain’t taking no chances with them either, so when I find them I roast them and their egg sacks,

I usually leave those fuzzy jumpin spiders alone and the non venomous web making spiders because they stay outta my way,

but I don’t care for those big wolf spiders because those suckers are fast and they get under everything, and I don’t want one crawling on me when I’m working under a machine in the shop lol,

 

 

  I've been here 8 months and everytime I turn around there's something new that's venomous or deadly.  I just discovered I have a fire ant hole right in front of the front door of the house I bought!  They are crawling around in January....  Should be froze to death.  Ahh... good old Nebraska where all you have to worry about is getting run over by a combine.

I Never been to Nebraska but surely y’all got something poisonous up there? 

snake? Spider? Sketchy looking corn?