I made a fish asked for by a family member, as seen on the internet.  It was a whimsical thing but I keep seeing a piranha.

I really like it Scott, it'd be a popular and marketable item. I don't see a piranha though, those things seem to be a stomach attached to toothy jaws. I can remember seeing them in pet shops when you could still buy them. Even little silver dollar sized ones were terrifying at feeding time and they couldn't keep them in a common tank or they fought, LOTS!

I really like your fish, I may have to adopt and adapt a version, I know fishy people who might like one.

Frosty The Lucky.

I like it!

  Thanks, CGL.  

  Frosty, the shape reminded me of a piranha.  Put some razor teeth in that mouth and some bulgy, bloodthirsty eyes on it, and it's a piranha.  Add a chicken bone in it's jaws painted dripping red and there you are.

  I have an idea for a school of them as a wall hanger.

  People would like my stuff more if it was whimsical and 

On the wall of my shop I have 3 similar ones made from different sized horse shoes with the smallest leading a line of increasingly larger ones, all with their mouths open to eat the one in front.

Scott, did you cut out a piece of one leg of the horse shoe where they cross to make the tail and then weld on the stub for the bottom part of the tail?  I have filed and ground out half of each side so that they line up in the same plane but it is a hassle.  I usually just overlap them and call it good.  Also, I like the base.

G

PS if you use a round punch to make an eye above the mouth it adds to the realism and you can give them different experessions/attitude with different shaped eyes.

  George, that's a cool concept with them eating each other.  Many things that might symbolize....    I was thinking of a bunch of little ones going after a big one for a wall hanger....

  Yes, I just chopped a piece out of one part and welded it up.  I may try the grinding half out of each part sometime.  There's a term for it but it escapes me at the moment.  I have seen them overlapped too as well.  

  I have eye punches but this was a case of "I want that!".  My eye punches don't last long, but I just re-do them.  I need to make different styles though, as you say.  Too much on ol' the plate right now.....

 

I like it Scott. The welds look nice. There are a lot of variations that can be done with these. 

 

 

  Thanks Das.  I've made all kinds of creatures with them, frogs, bird, butterdlies, but I think dragonflies are my favorite.

I think dragon flies in general are everybody's favorite.

There was a guy up here that made butter flies from horse shoes. One folded into a cigar shape for the body and two on each side for wings. IIRC horse shoe nails made the feelers. I haven't seen one of his butter flies in probably 30 years. 

Frosty The Lucky.

There used to be a place south of Colorado Springs that was a sort of private insect zoo which had beside its sign a 10-12' long rhinocerous beetle sculture.  It was a little disconcerting to see it at night.

G

That was easy enough to find in a search! You're building my Tuesday morning confidence nicely George. The sculpture is a copy of Herkimer the largest beetle and is the "main sign for the May Natural Museum," outside Co. springs Co. 

The pics of the sculpture are cool but Herkimer crawling on a hand/forearm is creepy cool excellence.

Frosty The Lucky.

They are very handy. I get the most return either making larger crosses with horseshoe nails as filler design, or using singles to forge horseshoe horse head hearts. I love so much I see done with horseshoes. 

And we really need to talk about these butteredlies. I'm surprised Frosty hasn't run with that one but it can be a bit slick. Must not have stuck, or he was affraid to slip. I really shouldn't stick it on him. I'm just spreading it out there. 

Honestly tho, no butteredlies, I've been trying to think of how to make some different shaped butterflies. 

 

Teach me to keep my fingers off the keys! I'll have to see what I have for horse shoes and see what I can come up with. It's only been 30+ years, the memory and details are still as fresh as . . . Oooh SHINY!

Frosty The Lucky.

Apparently butter works. 

I've had some offers for horseshoes I wish I had followed up on. Some I've got in the past were super worn or aluminum. I tend to use new premade for most things. I really ought to make some phone calls if I can get out or away from my social anxiety. 

I have used horseshoes a lot in my work. I have bought new ones but I have found I like used ones better. If I run across ones made by Nordic Forge,I save those for special things. They move very well under the hammer. And I try to leave as much of the character of the individual shoe as I can. Tommie worked at a sand mine right before covid and got laid off. But they had this machine I can't recall the name of that would sift the sand and mostly there were rocks in it but occasionally it would cough up other things. He found half a very worn shoe once and brought it home to me. I made a penanular? brooch out of it and managed to keep the nail fuller intact. It is now owned by a female farrier friend of mine. Some friends bought me a box of used shoes from ebay and I collected a bunch off the ground when I went with my father in law to buy a goat one time. Turned out the guy had done farrier work and he let me have all the shoes I could find for free. Ha ha sorry. I love making things from horse shoes

 

I remember what that machine was called. It is a digester

10 hours ago, Daswulf said:

we really need to talk about these butteredlies

  Lol.... Slow down Scott, slow down!  I think the edit window is down to like 7.5 milliseconds....

  That is cool about the half a shoe CGL.  I have a odd small one I'm saving for something special.  I wish I had a bucket full of them.  No, two buckets.

I have a box and 2 buckets full of horse shoes. When we had the business just about anything made from them sold well. I have made dragon's out of some and a door knocker out of a large draft shoe.

One of my favorites

This was made for a trade item at one of our BOA meetings.

  There's horse farms all around here but haven't visited them yet.  I love the dragon and it's on my list.    I like how it stands up.

That one is from a draft horse shoe and I flattened the front clip so it would stand alone.

I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sail’s.
Semper Paratus

 

Cool fish. Simple and and it is fun to look at. 

Nice knocker IFC

  Thanks Rojo.   

Ribbit! 

Nice frog Scott.

I could see one with a tongue sticking out catching a fly or bug made from horseshoe nails. 

That's a lot of fun Scott but Das is right it could use a bug.

Frosty The Lucky.

  Perfect!  My next one will have a tongue catching a nice, fat, juicey housefly.....  I sometimes over look nice details like that.  I love ideas like this.