.
And yet another rolling ball sculpture gets underway. How do you suppose this mess is going to turn out?
Pieces, pieces, pieces
2
Tag Archives: Rolling Ball Sculpture
Well, we can’t have that
Ugly
Less ugly
Today’s pic o’ the day brings with it – an extra pic! Woohoo! You’re welcome.
I usually try to limit it to just one picture to force myself to learn to make decisions, but today’s post simply wasn’t going to go over so hot without having a “before” shot. And, um, actually, the “before” shot is really more of a “already started, but still ugly” shot.
Shall I explain? I shall. In the top photo in the foreground you can see what looks like a pretty ugly piece of wire. In the, um, aft-ground a wire that looks kinda shiny. That wasn’t like that minutes before I shot this. All the wires looked blackened and scarred up like the foremost one. I wish I’d thought to take a picture before I started cutting things off. Pity. At any rate, there were two main wires for the track that were haphazardly connected to each other with two U-shaped pieces. They were all horrible welds, and some of the pieces were nearly cut in half rather than being welded together. It was a mess, and I didn’t think it was even going to stick together for long.
With my recent success in welding, I decided I absolutly had to fix that aberration. I picked up the bolt cutters and proceeded to remove all manner of nastiness. Then I fabricated new pieces to go in place of the dead ones. It took a total of ten welds to get everything back together, and I’m happy to say that only two of those were less than decent. Unfortunately, you can actually see one of them here (that black dot on the connecting piece is a hole), but an 80% success rate for me is ridiculously high. In short, it was a good night, a very good night indeed. I hope this streak of goodness continues, then we’ll be able to look at photos of me building stuff instead of pictures of welded spots like these.
Did I mention I wanted a punch press yesterday? I’d like one, thanks. And the vertical mill also, still want that. A lot.
Did I also mention that I was looking up geometry on line and CAD stuff and that I looked up the course requirements for a machinist? Yep, losing my mind here, folks.
Tonight I’m also going to meet with someone from my NaNo group and we’re going to go over the edits and suggestions we had for each other after swappping novels. I do still write, you know, lest that be forgotten amidst this morasse of machinery obsessiveness.
RBS weld – finally!
.
Yes! At long last, a decent weld on the RBS! This single photo comprises my sum total of welding for the evening, but at least I have something nice to show for it. I butt-welded these two rods together (go ahead, laugh. “butt weld, butt weld, butt weld”) and they turned out the way I wanted them to! They’re together! They’re not all knotty and blobby and pitted! ‘Tis a Christmas miracle – or something!
Anyway, I’ve been trying to get the hang of this welding thing for quite some time, obviously, and I’ve been making mistakes right and left on the sculpture. Tonight it was a welcome moment of victory. I’d best hold on to this one. I may not have another for weeks to come. I mean, I totally hope that’s not true, but it’s possible.
On a related note, I’d like a band saw, a drill press, a punch, an arbor press, and a vertical mill. Just sayin’. I suppose I could get by without the drill press if I had the vertical mill. Don’t want to sound greedy.
YESSSSS!!!!! Victory!!!!!
Got it!!! I know this doesn’t look like much. It looks like some grubby little gray sticks, but I assure you that this is some of the most gorgeous crap I have turned out in weeks! It’s not perfect, but, man, it’s MUCH better than it has been for months! And, really, the thing is, although I have made some good welds previously, this time I was able to repeat the process seven times! THAT is progress! And…AND!!! – when I grabbed them and wiggled them in all kinds of directions, and nothing broke off!!! SOLID!!! That is what we want!!!!
That stuff written above the practice piece are the settings on the welder for the amperage and the size of the tungsten electrode that I used to make these welds. I thought I’d never forget it, wouldn’t need to write it down, but then it occurred to me that weeks ago I’d done some welds that looked just as good as these, but hadn’t written anything down, and then I spent weeks trying to get back to this, so, can’t hurt, right?
Anyway, I could bore you with a long story about how I figured all this out, but let’s just say I practice, and practiced, and practiced, and practiced, and in between I asked for a lot of help and did a bunch of research. Now, finally(!!) I can do some solid work of which I will be proud, and which I can use to make decent sculpture. This type of welding right here is the basis upon which all my work is done, so having achieved this I have an excellent starting point from which to grow.
In short, this is really awesome. Really, really, really awesome!!!! Woot, says I.
Pedal to the metal
Here’s some more practice work from the welding bench. I just stuck a bunch of rods together, because I am still having massive trouble getting things to stick without either making cold, weak welds, or blowing obnoxiously big craters in things and overheating them. These welds are largely of the latter type. As evidence of just how crappy they are, you’ll note that there are several spots along the longest wires where it looks like there are missing “teeth.” Those places used to have short wires welded to them, but the minute I put pressure on them with my hands, they broke off. Doh.
This is not what we want, kids. This is not good. This does not make me the happiest guy on earth. However, it is all part of the learning process, and sooner or later I’ll figure this out.
Oh, and the wires are sitting on top of my brand new foot pedal control (you can switch the welder on and off with it instead of using what is, to me, a clumsy hand control). The pedal helped me get the welds started more easily, but I’m still melting everything like I have a Death Ray instead of fusing things nicely together.
More practice to come. I’ll get the hang of this yet.
…My intentions…ooh, weird…
Following yesterday’s questioning of my sanity, this is the part where I go, “Oh yeah – THIS is why I like to do this!”
It was quite a process to get everything lined up and ready to weld, and then the welding itself, well, that’s still a struggle, but I believe I got things going well enough to keep all of this together for at least 24 hours, if not longer! This shot is from below, looking up at the piece. You can see the nifty bracket, right? Behold the niftiness! (Niftiness?? Niftyness…niff-tee-niss…)
Here’s an above shot.
Side view.
And that is our outstandingness for the weekend! Lots of work, lots of crappy welds, lots of frowning and sweating and whatever, but it’s all together! It even sort of works when you roll marbles down it. Who woulda thought??
(Bits of) my creation
Remember that little bracket from a few days ago? Back on the 21st? Well, it was lame, and something had to be done about that. Sure, it would have worked as a plain, flat piece of metal, something you could easily forget, never notice – but what in heaven’s name would be the point in THAT??! I had to throw a little wackiness at it, make it interesting, and after some work with a jig saw, drill, and grinder, we have the magic you see above. Fun, eh? It took a long time, but I think it was worth it. I’d love to create more stuff in this style. I *really* dig it. It reminds me of old Buck Rogers stuff, that fabulous 50s jet-age sort of feel that comic books and advertisements had. I hope more of this shows up here.
If you’re building one of these things, once you’ve spent way too many hours making fancy little brackets just so they’ll look like fancy little brackets, you finally get to the part where you have to actually, you know, install it. This is where multiple clamps come in handy. Not the steel blocks and clamp supporting the section of 2×4, the two welding clamps at the top of said 2×4 which are delicately balancing the platform to be welded to the sculpture, and the red-handled clips with the pipe that are holding up a long arm of the ball track (not to mention the other steel block that’s holding the lower clamp). These are probably the times where I most often go, “Why do I want to do this again?”
The answer to that question is right around the corner.
Bits and pieces…and the bits and pieces
Today is a special edition of One-Pic-A-Day where I present you with – four pictures. I do this to surprise and amaze you, not because I’m absorbed in my own project and am a detail fanatic about documenting every step. No, surely not that…
Little legs
You’ve seen a few pictures over the last several days where I was working on some boring-looking flat thing with a hole in it. Well, here’s the wrap on that whole deal, and I thought you might be curious. If not, skip on to tomorrow where there will likely be more pictures of…the same sort of thing. Good luck with that.
Anyway, above are the little legs I cut and bent that will go around the edge of the plate and hold up the guardrail that will keep the marbles corralled so they don’t go spilling all over the floor.
Blocked up
Here I have the plate flipped upside down and held securely in place with my nifty steel blocks. It helps to be positive that things aren’t going to move while you’re welding. I’m a little extreme sometimes, but at least I won’t worry. Maybe.
Woot!
Presto – we’re done! There was a lot more to it, but I apparently got really excited about how well it was going, and I didn’t shoot any pictures between adding the railing and adding the bolts and nut. Those fasteners that I welded in there will just help the marbles bang around a good bit and wander off in all sorts of unpredictable directions. Because of this bit of wackiness, the marbles will never go through the sculpture the same way twice! Unpredictability – I like it.
Don't move!
Yet again the nifty steel blocks prove their usefulness. Not only do they help hold that brace in place, but the sheer weight of the block is enough to allow me to use a rather heavy clamp to hold it upright. I’m not reassuring you that these blocks were a good thing to buy, I’m reassuring me, although if you agree, I’m cool with that.
So, now the randomizer/track splitter is all constructed and awaiting to have the brace welded to it that will attach it to the sculpture itself. Easy enough right? One would think so…
Rails
.
Here’s the plate all by its lonesome – wait! What’s that you can barely see around the edges? That’s right – it’s tonight’s work! Wires, pieces of bent wire. I guess that’s not bad considering I did it in 45 minutes, but still – bent wire? THAT’S my big accomplishment? Okay!
That took longer than anticipated
.
The thing to really focus on here is that plate with the hole in it underneath the other crap. I guess I put the other stuff in the photo to make it look a little fancier, because, really, all that I did the entire evening was make that plate with the hole in it. I needed this piece, so I cut it off of a giant sheet of extremely rusty metal, then I smoothed off all the sides and rounded the corners, then I ground off all of the rust, then I cut the hole in it. This doesn’t sound like the sort of thing that will consume 2.5 hours, but I assure you, it is. I got done, looked at my watch, and went, “What?!” Well, there you go. I guess sometimes the simple-looking stuff takes a while.