Tag Archives: copper

I made another thing

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Man, since January I’ve not posted? Wow. I guess I’ve had a lot of other things going on, many of them either not blog-worthy, or things I just can’t share (but hope to before long).

At any rate, I can share this sculpture piece. I completed it a little while back, but I’ve had to do some vetting of photos on Flickr, because I’m nearing my limit for the free account, and I’m having a hard time justifying spending cash on the paid account. Sure wish I could find some money lying around. Oh, I did try the lottery twice in desperation, probably around January, but the winds did not blow in my favor, so I just picked up additional work. More on the additional work in a moment.

Sculpture:

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Nifty, huh? I kind of love it, although it was a ridiculous pain to build. It fought me at several points. There were odd little things to square away to keep marbles from rolling all over the floor, and then I went and got really crazy and built that seemingly simply brass piece at the end. I was under a tight deadline, and the “steps” seemed like such a simple idea. It was brilliant!

Brilliant, yes. Simple, no. I figured it would take me, well, I don’t know how long, but not long. Maybe I was thinking an hour or two. I believe it was closer to six or eight, and with the schedule I was on at the time, that was like adding another week to it. It did underscore my need for some metal-bending tools, like a brake or a small press. With a press and an appropriate die I would have had that thing made in half the time.

However, it all turned out very nicely. The steps are of brass, and since they are suspended rather freely on the copper they have a fair bit of ring to them when hit by the marbles. It’s a nice affect, and precisely what I was going after.

I did learn a lesson from this, and that was on the practical side of time investment and pricing. I think I priced this appropriately at the time I was commissioned for it, but in the future my prices will have to change. I simply cannot produce work like this in a short time span. I tracked the hours on this one, and it overshot my estimate by fifty to seventy-five percent.

I am quite pleased with this one, though, and with all the help I received on it in various forms from other people. It sapped a lot of my time at some rather crucial points, and the understanding I received at those times was pretty wonderful.

Results!

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I’ve been away so long that I thought I’d pulled up an incorrect enry at the home page! I went, “No, I’ve posted since NaNo. Where is that post on sculpture… Uh… It’s… Not…here…anywhere!”

Man, it has been too long! I guess the day after NaNo ended I pretty much jumped right back into sculpture work. That didn’t let up for over two weeks, as it was a piece for a client. Following that, well, you get the holidays and all that craziness, and here we are, January, and not a post to show for over a month! Honestly, though, I was sure that about a week ago I’d posted something. I’ll just have to take care of that right this minute.

The following piece is one I worked on all through 2010. There were a lot of “off” periods where I just had many other things going on and wasn’t able to sit down at the work bench and put time into it. However, I did manage to complete this one for a client in California. Sadly, it was not until some weeks after I mailed it off that I realized I didn’t take one single decent picture of it once it was completed. These are a couple that give you a nice idea of the finished product, if in a rather informal setting.

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In the above photo I was doing some testing before I finally mounted the sculpture to the base. I thought this one turned out nicely. I have to thank my dad for the gorgeous wood base he created for it. It all came together quite nicely.

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Here’s something of a “before” shot. I was cleaning up the sculpture, getting all the flux residue off of it and prepping for the final cleaning. It had just been scrubbed down in the sink, which is why it has water droplets all over it.

I was very happy with this one, and pleased to say that the client enjoyed it too. I have another for you coming up before much longer. It was an extremely busy holiday season, but I managed to squeeze another one in with lots of late nights and a little extra coffee.

Rolling through, and being okay with it

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Here you can see the roll out, the exit for the sculpture. It turned out nicely, but there was plenty of tweaking involved in the area immediately below the final spiral. I spent a good long time getting that to work properly. This was another one of those details that ended up absorbing far more hours than you’d think it would or should. This is exactly the sort of thing that keeps people from building these doohickeys. It’s the little stuff that’s most challenging for the simple fact that it’s nit-picky and slow. Fortunately, I thrive on that sort of attention to detail. The real challenge for me is to be okay with it not being 100% perfect, something which no human is capable of, but which I, for some reason, think I should be able to do. This thing is working well, and I’m going to be happy with that. Onward! Completion awaits!

Legs and stuff

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The main part of the run is all finished. Now it’s time to put the supporting structure in place. The big looping piece that’s describing an arc and being held in place with all sorts of clippy things, that’s what I’m attaching. The lower part that shoots out of the picture will be cut short once I decide the final shape. It will probably have a slight scroll to it. I think. Maybe. Lots of times I don’t know exactly how this stuff will turn out until it’s done. You probably don’t want me building a bridge for you, at least not one that, you know, has to carry anything important. Tacoma Narrows, here I come!

Roll on, roll on!

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I’m still at work on this one. It’s looking good so far. I have most of the run done at this point. It needs the final exit section, and then it will be time to add the supports/legs. At this point I’m kind of wondering at my wisdom in creating the run before building the support structure, but, well, there we are. It’s just going to go the way it’s going to go at this point. No turning back now!

Just a little off the top

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Okay, it wasn’t off the top, but I spent a ton of time filing the side of this bit of wire down so it will fit properly onto the edge of the spiral where it will be soldered. This is the kind of work that eats up evenings and leaves you going, “THAT? I’ve been sitting here for ninety minutes, and I did THAT?” Looks nice when it’s done, though. Rolls good too!

Slingshot – Rolling Ball Sculpture Completed!

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Woohoo! Another one off the bench!

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What do ya think? Fun, huh? Everyone kept saying, “Hey, don’t you think you could maybe, like, make it go up and over? Like a loop? Can’t you do that?” And I was all like, “Yes.” And I did. It whips through the loops and then drops down into the little pocket at the end and spins for a second with the leftover energy.

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This one’s pretty fun. It has kind of a leaned back look to it, and the way the long drop launches the marble into the loops it reminded me of a slingshot. From a side angle the bottom loop-the-loop looks like wheels and the stretch up to the spiral at the top looks like what they used to call a “slingshot” dragster, but that’s just me. You’re opines may vary, and that’s totally cool with me. It’s still fun to play with.