Woman UpThis is a pretty awesome welding supply store in Prospect Heights. They have everything for men and women and almost everything comes in hot pink for the ladies.
The owner also asked me if we wanted to make a window display for them for Christmas. Yeah?
708 Washington Ave between Prospect Pl. and St Marks

Welding Accident

We had an awesomely terrifying accident in class last Saturday. Ryan was trying to blow a hole through a stubborn strip of metal, and was going to show us how to patch it when he finished. The MIG welder was heating the metal up, but wouldn't blow through - until a chunk of the strip dripped out at once and splashed on the floor. Nobody got burned, but a big drop landed on our extension cord and ate straight through the insulation! As they say at 3rd Ward, Safety dont forget !

Stockpile Designs

This is Jake, one of Ryan's students in intro to metalworking. Last spring I started a micro-business making housewares out of military surplus. The business has been going pretty well, but I got to a point where I was drafting designs I didn't know how to make. The class has already been great in giving me new ideas for using my pieces, and showing me the potential and limitations of my materials. I'll check in here from time to time to post any new projects - and please check out my Etsy store if you need a gift for someone who likes tasteful interiors and heavy metal.

Fall 2010 Class @ 3rd Ward (Furniture & Sculpture)

Hello All,

1st - here is the blog associated with the class. Its an opportunity for everyone to ask questions & post photos/ideas. This exists as a way for us to be engaged beyond just meeting on Saturdays. In one way the subsequent dialogue is as good as we make it.

For example - Amelia spoke about Donald Judd and her having worked at http://www.chinati.org/ which Ben hadnt really heard about. This is the space to introduce each other to those things we find inspiring, interesting and imbued with criticality.

In light of that comment -
http://www.husseinchalayan.com/

Ordering Steel from Extremor or Rapid Steel

Order from http://www.rapidsteel.us (delivers to 3rd Ward) or from Extremor Stainless Steel 1050 Grand Street, Brooklyn, NY 11211 718-302-6108 (walking distance from 3rd Ward). Reed has used Extremor and Mike K. has used Rapid Steel.

The material to order is hot rolled mild steel.
Steel generally comes in 24 ft lengths.
The wall thickness or gauge would be 1/8 inch which is .125.

For furniture or sculpture Square Box tubing is a good material. To give you some context we were working on the one foot square cubes from one inch square box tubing last week in class. A one foot square cube requires 12ft of material.

Place a steel order if you have a project idea in mind. Depending on where you are at in the class working with the available scrap steel at 3rd Ward can be very useful to develop your technique and get a sense of sculptural composition.

Tack welds, Scribing & 90 degree angles

Here is a video that I created as I started to assemble the legs of a table. In the demo, I'm using a set of magnets to hold together the different pieces to ensure that the two pieces are positioned are at 90 degrees.

Here is the link to the video.

Tack Welds

To secure the two pieces together, I'll use a tack weld to ensure that the two pieces are secure before I finish them off with a longer weld across the two seams of the metal. The tack welds are used to ensure that I measured correctly and that the angles are setup correctly before "really" attaching the two pieces together with the longer welds. If I screwed up my tack welds, it's easy to fix.

But if I don't use a tack weld and go right into a longer weld, it will require a lot more work to fix such as using the angle-grinder to cut off the weld, more sanding to clean up any spatter and genuine frustration that I have to start over from scratch.

Scribing

I overlooked the concept of scribing when I first got started in metal working. Scribing is the art of measuring and then cutting the metal to your expected lengths. While the video doesn't show me scribing anything, I never would have been able to get the lengths to the right size without it.

I like to use both a Sharpie marker to identify the lengths (and pieces) that I'm working with and a scribe tool such as this:

The scribing is important because it's easy to cut the pieces the wrong size and that is never a fun exercise to repeat something that you should do once.

90 degree angles

Welding two pieces together at 90 degree angles and have them line up perfectly sounds really easy but it's actually more complex than you think. Depending on whether you have cold-rolled or hot-rolled steel, the steel may or may not be perfectly uniform. I took this for granted when I was trying to figure out the differences and most often two pieces of steel are never exactly the same.

Welding magnets, like the one below really helps the two pieces of steel stay where you want them to and holds them together while you do the tack welds. I can't recommend these magnets enough and I'd recommend that you use two to ensure that you have a tight grip on the steel.

I hope you've enjoyed the video.

Ordering Steel

On Saturday we will go through the process of ordering steel so that people will be able purchase their own material for specific projects and/or to experiment.

In the meantime take a look at Rapid Steel a company that will deliver directly to 3rd Ward which students have used successfully in the past - http://www.rapidsteel.us/

Hot rolled (mild) steel works great for welded steel furniture and sculpture. This is the material to use for your first project.

Inspiration

I keep a folder of inspirational images for my design work, and I thought folks might be interested in the architectural & interiors related images from that.

It's stuff from every where, but it gets me thinking about new furniture & sculpture ideas.

Hope it's useful:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28117403@N07

MIG @ Miller welding online

Here is a great source for MIG welding information:

http://www.millerwelds.com/resources/improving-your-skills/mig/

At this stage of the game we are focussed on welding hot rolled mild steel which is the material most commonly used in furniture and sculpture. When we refer to 'steel' in the shop this is what we talking about. Cold rolled steel is much harder and can be very valuable in a situation when you need a more precise gauge/thickness of steel.

Welcome New 3rd Ward Class Summer Session

Welcome to the new Students this is your teacher for the summer session at 3rd Ward - Ryan OConnor.

It was great to meet you all last Saturday at our first class. This blog was set up
so we can have an ongoing engagement of ideas, thoughts and questions. I want
us to create a vibrant dialogue that can support and encourage your ongoing
development through our Saturday class meetings.

Each of you have been added and should post things to the blog. These posts can be germane to the class specifically or congruent to the larger topic of art in life ie. a gallery show to check out, an inspiring story of an artist, your favorite chocolate cake recipe! Well maybe not that unless you studied under Ferran Adria!! kidding.

Buy a small sketchbook and start carrying it with you. Then check this out:

The American drawing-book by J.G. Chapman from 1847

http://digital.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/t/text/text-idx?idno=00z303872m;view=toc;c=nietz

Whether you draw, used to draw or stopped drawing we will use this text as a jumping off point. Draw anything, draw poorly, do amazing drawings. I encourage everyone to post a sketch or any thoughts they have about drawing.

Video: Contemporary Sculptors on Sculpture

Use the link for a series of short videos with contemporary sculptors (Judy Pfaff, Janine Antoni, Dan Graham, Olaf Breuning) talking about their creative process & perspectives.

http://sculpture-center.org/exhibitionsMore.htm

From the Sculpture Center series entitlted Framing Sculpture

Monster progresss

I've spent the last few nights in the metal shop, and I'm happy to have made some progress with the monster armature. Its all happening pretty organically because I've been finding the parts I need on the street within the last few days, and strangely its taken form of my initial sketch - which I had previously scrapped because it was too crazy and I couldn't find the parts.

I took a step away from the ball and socket joint because it was making my brain flood, and my bits break. Lenin (from the shop) offered to TIG the bearings to the rod for me, and I am going to take him up on his offer. I'm still not sure the joints will even function properly - but there's only one way to find out i suppose :) For now, I will work on what i can with what i've got.



Wings! The base of the wings are made from some kind of oil pumps found 3 blocks from 3rd ward. They were in a box full of all kinds of cool/dirty metal things, which i lugged back to the studio and have been utilizing. The feathers will be layered and rivited because MIG welding them has not worked out so well.


The initial sketch

Table unfinished

I've been working on this end table for a while and it's amazing how fast things move when you actually know what you're doing (and aren't afraid of making a few mistakes along the way).

The advice that our instructor, Ryan O'Connor, gave us during class really helped push me through my barriers of overthinking the fabrication process. Once I decided to just go ahead and build the damn thing, everything went into place.

These are some pictures of the tables and some of the welds, post-grinds and the table as it is almost finished up.

Here are the legs of the table after grinding off the scale with a 60-grit flap disc and welding the pieces together

This is a close-up of the legs after they were welding together.

And after the grinding with the flap disc to remove the excess material and clean up the weld. The flap disc works great because it "blends" the metal together so it looks clean.

Here is another example of the weld after it has been cleaned.

Here is the almost finished product. It needs a little more cleaning but it's almost finished. Next step....cleaning up the welds, polishing the steel and a little buffing.

Finish your metal - Lessons learned

I'm doing a lot of research to better understand what are the finishing options for different types of steel. After making quite a few mistakes, the progress is coming along nicely with the finishing.

I am using a Walter Flap Disc (that is attached to an angle grinder) to smooth out the welds & polish up the metal. I didn't realize this until I had already purchased them, but these flap discs are really a grinding wheel + sanding wheel all in one. They were created to help eliminate two steps and I'm very happy with the 60 grit Walter Flap Disc that I'm using.

I will be testing out a 120 grit Flap Disc this week and will put up some photos to demonstrate some of the differences.

Also, in what may be just my own perception, is that finishing the cold rolled plate is a lot more work than the hot rolled (milder) steel. I practically went through a DeWalt flap disc trying to get some shine on the cold rolled plate. It could just be me but the grinder was working extra hard on the cold rolled material.

Here is a good article from Lehigh Valley Abrasives

Action Rules the Day

Onwards Onwards here we go now folks!!

Action rules the day.
We can think and think and think but the path to success leads through failures.
Its great to make mistakes. Hahahahah!

Make a mistake and the knowledge we gain has been earned.

These thoughts rest firmly upon the actions of you the students! Ive been watching everyone switching forward from the thinking phase into the action phase. Into the NO FEAR phase because acting means you arent afraid of getting in there and making some mistakes. And that is the essence of having passed through the first gate or first doorway of this stage. Once you arent afraid of making a mistake then you can shift from deliberation between two or more choices into action. And that my friends is the shift from trying to make it happen to being present in the world.

its alive, sort of

The ball and socket joint came to life. Its working but its jerky, and i'm not sure how much weight it can hold. Im going to make a few small adjustments and add some weight to the ends of the rod to test it under pressure, and if it doesn't work better I'll try another design. Open to suggestions.



The drawings



Metal Skull! Go see the real thing at The Evolution Store in Soho. Awesome place.

Some inspiration

This is a place with some amazing metal work in St. Louis. Its like a jungle gym made out of art and junk and artifacts and has two bars, a reception hall, aquarium, skate park and circus school all inside this warehouse. They've got a team of artists constantly working on something so there is always something new. If you're ever in the area I suggest you check it out.

http://www.citymuseum.org/home.asp

Check out the panoramic photo galleries, specifically of MonstroCity and the Shoe Shafts.

http://www.citymuseum.org/panphototour.html

Metal Monster

I've decided to try to build an armature - some of it will be made of scrap metal, and some from parts that i'm buying. I haven't settled on a design, but the idea is to build it with adjustable joints so that it will be a fully articulated armature that I can use for a stop-motion animation. The creature will be 3-4ft tall, and i'd like it to be able to support its self without a platform at its feet.

The first challenge here is to find the proper joints - they need to be adjustable, made of steel (or maybe brass), and large enough to support the limbs/parts of the creature without slipping under its weight. I couldn't find a joint that would work for this online - not one within my price range, and comprehension. So I've decided to implement techniques used to build small metal armatures, but on a larger scale, and I'm going to make them from scratch. These are ball and socket joints.

I just ordered a box of steel balls from McMaster-Carr. Here's a photo of the joint i'm looking to create, but on a larger scale.

philosophy bites Duchamp and monowheel sketch up

I listened to this short podcast the other day. It sounds a little pretentious with the accents (urinal = your-INE-al) but I like the series and this one is related to the talk about Duchamp and alternative experience or conceptions or further explorations of the notion "art" that Ryan was discussing two weeks ago. http://www.philosophybites.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=320213


also I wanted to post a couple of images from sketchup of the monowheel thing I want to make. I think the specifics have changed a bit, but this give an idea anyway...

Ryan, had another idea I like better. More welding, but less precision?

It's a tube..2-3 feet, big enough to house a fluorescent tube, & drilled through with random pattern of holes. Into the holes would be welded many smaller tubes at random angles. When lit, some light shines through the "spikes", as well as either end. -jeff

Examples of cable-tie treatment for floor lamp proposal. -jeff

Welding Basics Series On Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=9C97D25DB1495BBB

Simon Schama's Power of Art

This is a great 8 part series i stumbled on a few months back,

For me it gives a sense of how art can create new ways of being Human.

Introduction at series website:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/powerofart/intro.shtml

Caravaggio
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=89641B34BD275408

Bernini
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=1A0740CED11F66A7

Rembrandt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAESiQdKRCA


You get the idea, its on YouTube, just search for
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Simon+Schama+Power+Of+Art&aq=f


Cheers
Arun

This is a design for a lighting piece I proposed to Ryan in our class on 5.1.10. The verticle rods would then be covered completely in varying lengths of cable ties (an example to come). The open structure would hopefully allow for slight movement. -jeff

Ryan's Oxy Acetylene Gas Demo

Here is the first part of Ryan's Oxy Acetylene Gas Demo.

There will be more to come around plasma cutting, scribing and MIG welding.

Enjoy!

-Mike

Great Mig Welding Story

Here is a great story about a guy who in 1999 wanted to teach himself MIG welding so that he could weld aluminum. Give it a read and see how he makes his way through the process.

http://eddiem.com/projects/mig/mig.htm

Inspiring.

Onwards!
Ryan

sparks!

class photos from Saturday, April 24th (and some more here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/dolicho.launa/WeldingClass#)

3rd Ward: Welding for Sculpture & Furniture

Hello Class

This is the intro post for the class Im teaching over at 3rd Ward: Welding for Sculpture & Furniture. Ill post info from our first sessions on art, fabrication, welding etc so that the class can refer back to the information. Equally as important this will be a place for the class to post drawings, project ideas, questions & photos.