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[Closed] I have just knocked up this bird...

WorldClassAccident · 2017-03-20T15:31:44Z

I am on leave all week with nothing planned and having watched the rain swirling in the wind all morning I was bored by lunchtime. I decided to have a go at some more welding sculpture and thought I would share the work so far. Please remember this is about 2 hours elapsed from having the idea and includes time driving to get the metal rod from the Metal Supermarket although I accept I may not be the fastest welder/worker in the world. First you start with detailed sketches and dimensions [urlby [urlon Flickr Then get your tools and equipment in a nice clear working area [urlby [urlon Flickr After buying 6 metres of metal rod, 3m of 8mm and 3 of 6mm, as the main working materials I started to measure and cut [urlby [urlon Flickr It is hard to use an angle grinder one handed while taking a photo left habded so sorry about the quality [urlby [urlon Flickr The drawing show gracefully bent and flowing rods reflecting the grace and beauty of the bird in flight. How could I recreate these bends without any metal bending tools? Easy, mount some old bike forks in a clamp and use body weight and muscle [urlby [urlon Flickr I am not sure if you are more surprised or I am that it actually worked [urlby [urlon Flickr Flaring the 'tail' of the bird also worked well in my customer created metal bending tool [urlby [urlon Flickr And here is the 'body' of the bird ready to fit the wings to [urlby [urlon Flickr Bending the wings worked initially on the bike fork bending machine but for some bends I had to resort to using the vice with some sacrificial wood to protect the metal finish [urlby [urlon Flickr So far this has basically been bending lengths of rod and although I had played with the angle grinder I felt I needed to add some proper danger so got ready to weld [urlby [urlon Flickr For those of you interested or knowledgable about welding, here are the sticks I used. Carefully chosen for this job as they were the only ones Screwfix had in stock. Advice on such matters welcome. [urlby [urlon Flickr The tail section is welded together. This photo looks like there is a big gap but that is because I took the picture from the top and the weld is along the underside, d'oh! [urlby [urlon Flickr To try and keep the top of the bird tidy I welded the wings on from underneath too. It was a bit awkward to position everything and keep the metal from moving while welding. I have some blue welding magnets but they seem pretty rubbish, perhaps I am using them for the wrong kind of stuff. I ended up resorting to gaffer taping the bird to the bench (oo-err) and doing one side of the wing before removing the tape and doing the other. Anyway, it worked [urlby [urlon Flickr This shows the same thing but from a different angle. Here you can see and comment on the welding I did on the tail earlier [urlby [urlon Flickr It currently looks more like a plane than a bird but once I have worked out how to make a head and some feathers... [urlby [urlon Flickr

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CharlieMungus

Posts: 0

Free Member

Is it a dog? Looks like a Coillie

Posted : 27/03/2017 2:20 pm

Harry_the_Spider

Posts: 23360

Full Member

That ashtray is massive!

Posted : 27/03/2017 2:20 pm

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