One of my jobs today, tapping out rusted off rivets, re-riveting the hinges and hanging the gate. A beautiful old cemetery, and my coworkers' granfather is buried here, so it's nice making the place nicer again.
A handwheel for the lathe broke when we moved shop, so I made a new one. I didn't want to make a boring wheel, so I gave it some flair. The hub or spindle, whatever you call it in English, is cast iron from an old sewing machine drive wheel. I welded it to the ring I forged out on the shop anvil. The snake head is just layers of weld ground to shape. The handle is a piece of pipe forged and shaped into a drop and then riveted in place, and yes, it spins freely, so the machinist is happy.
My first attempt at raising something out of one piece of plate, and my second copper sculpt ever, so I'm very much a novice, and any tips and tricks are welcome. Like how to deal with cracks.
I've been annealing it quite heavily, and since it's 3mm plate I have been working it hot when I need to move a lot of mass, but even then, it has started to crack, I've been using the TIG-welder to shut them up before they're getting to bad, and sometimes it works and sometimes not at all, and it kinda makes it worse, so if anyone have any knowledge to impart it would be greatly appreciated
​
So I did a complete redesign of the lower half of the mask since it wasn't clicking with what my inspiration is and what im going for the end goal. It was a lot of work because at this point, the plate was getting quite brittle despite almost constant annealing. I'm a novice at working copper, so everything is a lesson, and I love it, especially hot working it. You have to be so gentle with it that it almost feels like you're forging air.
Had to repair a gaggle of cracks using the trusty little TIG-welder,
Like the title, it's a copper mask I've been experimenting with for a while now. At first it was going to be a skull mask, but that inspiration fizzled out, so I undid all of that, and it became a "if it works it works" thing. I have like a nebulous end goal and a direction where I want it to end up, but it's all very free form. Right now it's very cthulhu-esque, and I like it