Heron "Picture"

[Blboise]

I built this for a friend as a retirement gift. Mild steel frame. "Moon/Sun" (your call) has brazed brass as does the grass in front of heron for some contrast. The hills/mountains are layered and the heron and cattails sort of sit outside the frame. All the parts were flap disked down to bare metal and "flame" painted.

[Big_Eddy]

I love it. Fantastic.

[modela]

Nice job. How do you get the colors?

Jim

[Blboise]

Nice job. How do you get the colors?

Jim

Sanded down to bare metal, then heated it with a propane plumber's torch. Try it sometime, it's sort of fun. The colors you get go from bronze to purple to deep blue and then sort of a silver blue then stop. You can't go back unless you sand back down to bare metal again. Also, the color develops past when you remove the heat, so as soon as you see some gold like color, back off -- see what you have and then if needed, add some more heat.

[modela]

Thanks, I will try it.

Jim

[Hydro]

That's beautiful, great job!

[Bert]

BEAUTIFUL job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Goodhand]

Artists, like you, make me feel so inadequate. Beautiful workmanship!

[Blboise]

Thank you all for the nice compliments. Best of all, the person I made it for also loves it. You always worry when you make a gift.

Thanks again.

bob

[Bert]

Bob, did you silver solder all those different metals together??
thanks
bert
p.s. Yeah, sometimes when you make a gift, the best thing is you hope for is that they love it as much as you would hope they do...............
scary, since art is so subjective!!!
again, beautiful work!!!

[Blboise]

Bob, did you silver solder all those different metals together??
!

Bert,

No, the pieces were Mig welded together. I laid it all out in sort of groups of pieces - the foreground hill and trees, the background larger mountain,lake and moon/sun -- and tacked the groups together trying to hide as many of the welds as possible. This was done from the backside, with the front facing down on the table. I'd make a small tack on each piece and if it all looked OK after turning it over, I made the weld a bit bigger. I tried to have the "heat spot" from the weld be somewhere on the front where I could get to it with a flap disc on the 4 1/2 grinder so I could get rid of the heat coloring. Then I laid it down in the frame and tacked it to edges. The Heron, grass and cattails were welding onto the front of the frame before putting on the mountains.

It took a bit of thought and layout to hide as much of the welding as I could.

Hope that answered your question.

bob