My brother and I were going to work on the Chevelle on Sunday, but by 2pm I hadn’t heard anything from him. I figured that, since I’d wanted to get some sculpture done, I might as well get started on it while I waited for him to call or come over. This turned out to be my greatest and wisest decision of the day.

My previous sculpting session had netted me with some design plans and three curved pieces of wire. I could have posted that the other day, but it was pretty unimpressive-looking, even though doing the work took me over an hour. As I mentioned previously, sometimes real progress doesn’t look like much.

So I sat down with my three pieces of wire which were to form the frame, and I thought about what I wanted to do. About all I knew was that I needed them to form a sort of tripod. Oh, and that the ends of each piece were to be curved in small spirals themselves (I do believe a theme is developing here, no?). Seeing as how I couldn’t assemble the frame without the pieces being curved first, I went to work on those. I used a piece of small pipe for the “big end,” and a small screw driver shaft to form the “small end.” After initial work, I had this:

The photo above shows the main supports along with a rough drawing depicting the top and side view of what I’m going after with this one. The top coils are yet to be modified into spirals at this point.

Above you can see the results of working the top coils into spiral shapes. Once that was done I brought the pieces together into a standing configuration. This took a bit of doing. At first I thought I was going to have to build a wooden frame to mount and position each piece. That would have obviously eaten up a lot of time, and I didn’t want to get that involved. Instead I took a stab at lining everything up by eye, and I’ll be hanged if it didn’t kind of work! I was completely amazed that I was able to get these pieces even remotely even/straight/aligned without a miniature scaffolding and sixteen extra sets of hands. Actually, that one pair of vice grips to the right performed amazingly well, and I thank it for its assistance.

The one thing I hate about lining stuff up is, once you have it all positioned and you’re sure you can really do it the way you wanted to do it, you have to take it all apart and prep the pieces to solder them, and then put it all back together all over again. This I do not like to do, and so after I got the pieces positioned and became exalted over the relative ease with which they came together, I stared at it for a little while, simply not wanting to take it apart…and then I took it apart.

Surprisingly, amazingly, and fantastically, when I got all this stuff lined up and positioned and put the torch to it, I only bumped it out of alignment one time. And when I bumped it that one time, I was unbelievably able to get it nudged back into place within seconds. Truly, angels and things otherwordly and and awesome were at work here, because that s*** just never goes my way! I got pretty darn lucky, though, and after a few tense moments was rewarded with this not-too-perfect-looking bit of solder work. It could be better, and I wish it were, but I got a good, solid joint, and that’s the important thing. This photo is before I washed and scrubbed it, so it looks a tad better now.

Here’s the finished effort! It stands alone after only four hours of work! (Well, it did after I took the clamps off, I assure you.) Not bad, kids, not bad. I honestly cannot believe that I got all of that stuff lined up and soldered using a pair of vice grips and two Third Hand clamps. Really, I’ve spent hours doing seemingly far simpler tasks and been rewarded with endless frustration. This was gold, gold I tell you! (Of course, right after I decided to knock off for the day I wished I’d gotten even more done. Never satisfied, I tell ya.)

The next step is to start hanging spirals. I realized immediately that adding elements to this might necessitate heating up that initial joint which I’d just made, and this freaks me out. Sometimes that stuff just falls apart again if it gets too warm. This could be a really big challenge, one that I’d not foreseen. Hopefully I’ll find a way around it. It’s looking nice so far, and it’s been fun. I hope it doesn’t turn into a nightmare. (Nightmares are great in movies and all, but they kind of suck at a workbench.)

On a related note, after I went to the doctor this morning (nothing serious, just annoying), I got some coffee in the building’s coffee shop. Dig the glass wall sculpture in the background! However, my main focus as I sat there waiting for my latte was these stands that they had for their lamps. The metal which comprised them was about as big around as my thumb. The night before I’d been fighting with a pair of needle-nose pliers to bend .10-inch copper into little spirals. I just looked at this thing and went, “Wow, must have been some big pliers.”

Sculpture Soundtrack: She and Him – Volume Four