andrewmacc
Canadian Wonderboy
So I had in my mind for a while to try my hand at making one of those steel flowers. What held me up for a while was that I didn't care much for the natural "patina" they develop from humidity over time, nor did I want to paint it.
Having inevitably just ended my relationship (which is a shame), I scoured the seven seas (unintentionally) and met a nice young lady who tickled my fancy, and I felt like making her something unique.
And thus, after a year of absently thinking about this kind of project, I finally grabbed some stainless steel 20ga sheet and some 1/4" stainless round rod.
There are templates all over the web, because this is not new territory, so I shamelessly printed them out, cut them, and transferred them to some nice stainless sheet with the protective layering.
Excuse the consistent mess in my garage. My garage is as cluttered as my mind.
I roughly cut them on the bandsaw, after a very short stint of trying the jigsaw, which just wasn't happening. Which is fine, the bandsaw was the much better choice.
I picked up some 3/32 309L filler wire, but only because they had no 1/16. That proved to be a small hassle, as the 20ga wanted to burn out before I could wick some filler wire into the pool. I ended up around 56 amps which was just enough to very lightly penetrate the 1/4" rod and lay a small tack.
First tack and bending the middle of the bud straight up.
That's the first layer, after using some needlenose and squarenose pliers. Having laid a tack in made it much more pliable.
Second set of petals
We're almost there.
The last two sets of petals I tried to peel backward a little for that natural droop of the petal, but that ended up working out better on the second rose.
Ta da.
I used a chisel and hammered some little texture lines on the leaf. This project would work faster with about 22ga to 24ga sheet metal, and easier to create texture and bumps. 20ga is the limit IMO until it becomes a pain in the butt.
Not bad for a first try, in my opinion. The second one went about three times faster:
Texture
Anyway, so that's that. Just thought it would be cool to share.
Having inevitably just ended my relationship (which is a shame), I scoured the seven seas (unintentionally) and met a nice young lady who tickled my fancy, and I felt like making her something unique.
And thus, after a year of absently thinking about this kind of project, I finally grabbed some stainless steel 20ga sheet and some 1/4" stainless round rod.
There are templates all over the web, because this is not new territory, so I shamelessly printed them out, cut them, and transferred them to some nice stainless sheet with the protective layering.
Excuse the consistent mess in my garage. My garage is as cluttered as my mind.
I roughly cut them on the bandsaw, after a very short stint of trying the jigsaw, which just wasn't happening. Which is fine, the bandsaw was the much better choice.
I picked up some 3/32 309L filler wire, but only because they had no 1/16. That proved to be a small hassle, as the 20ga wanted to burn out before I could wick some filler wire into the pool. I ended up around 56 amps which was just enough to very lightly penetrate the 1/4" rod and lay a small tack.
First tack and bending the middle of the bud straight up.
That's the first layer, after using some needlenose and squarenose pliers. Having laid a tack in made it much more pliable.
Second set of petals
We're almost there.
The last two sets of petals I tried to peel backward a little for that natural droop of the petal, but that ended up working out better on the second rose.
Ta da.
I used a chisel and hammered some little texture lines on the leaf. This project would work faster with about 22ga to 24ga sheet metal, and easier to create texture and bumps. 20ga is the limit IMO until it becomes a pain in the butt.
Not bad for a first try, in my opinion. The second one went about three times faster:
Texture
Anyway, so that's that. Just thought it would be cool to share.
