05/07/2025
It's been a few minutes since I last posted anything. My favorite customer is past his weapons stage, so those types of projects have fallen away. I guess turning teenager will do that. I have kept somewhat busy in the shop, although most of it was small stuff, not really worthy of display. But my latest creation was pretty fun and came out OK.
It's a dragonfly wall art. Dragonflies are my favorite bug. They're just cool looking. And they eat mosquitoes!!!
The forging was fairly straightforward (but still fun), however the assembly/fabrication had some challenges. But the part I really liked was the painting. I'll get to that at the end.
There are some 3D elements to it, mainly the head, back, and tail (head, thorax, and abdomen to any entomologists out there). One problem was - I had to figure out a way to keep the eyes in position for welding. Their centers needed to be raised above my table, and they're way too small to clamp properly. See the closeup of the head. My solution was modeling clay. I put a clump in the middle of the head and set the eye pieces into the clay, while the ends made contact with the head piece. I melted a little clay, but the eyes came out as intended.
Another challenge was the raised pieces for the back and tail. I wanted thinner stock for that, which is challenging for me to weld. But then I noticed that the thin stock I wanted to use wasn't much thicker than my welding rod. So I preformed the pieces and then used them as a welding rod. I melted the puddle in the thicker base piece, then inserted the back/tail pieces into the puddle, as if I was using it as filler, then backed off the heat and let that piece "freeze" in place.
Now, the paint. At first I was going to leave it natural, with a clear coat, but I thought to look up "iridescent paint". After all, this was a dragonfly, and they're normally pretty iridescent. One of the paints that came up was "Dragonfly Glaze", from a company called "FolkArts". This stuff has a clear base with tiny reflective particles suspended. Depending on the angle, it shines blue, purple, or red. I used a flat black base coat for contrast, and am really happy with how it turned out.
So that was my latest adventure in hot metal. I've got a bunch of pictures showing different angles, and you can see some color changing at those angles. The camera doesn't pick up the iridescence as much as real life, but you can see some blues and purples in there. Actually the closeup of the head shows the color changes really well.
Take care, folks!
