Saturday, October 16, 2010

Manhole Cover


Every great piece of art work needs to start with an idea that someone passes by me, or I see some piece of metal about and then I build it.  In this case, this sculpture started out with both an idea I had at mind and a thought posed by a new friend.

I had two manhole covers that I picked up in a scrap yard to make into bases for a sculpture although I didn't have any idea what the sculpture would be.  There they sat at my shop for six months when Therese asked about making a seven foot tall fish sculpture.  Now here was an idea and a perfect base.  The manhole cover is approximately two feet in diameter and weighs about 60-70 pounds.  Perfect for the base of this sculpture.






I decided to use varying sizes of fence finials as a base for each fish.  They have a great round shape and will create some interesting fish.  I like these balls because they are hollow and move nicely when welded to the top of steel rod.


I welded one twisted piece of two inch flat bar to the manhole cover first.  This gave me a height that I wanted to work around.  A guide if you will.  Here I am twisting on the steel.  Yeah.  My back is still hurting after twisting on all that steel.  It's a real manual brute force process.



I'm still working on this piece buy you can see where I'm going with it.  Mackie is creating glass eyes for each fish and I need to spray several coats of clear sealer to finish this piece off. 

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