Life at the "Oak" Tree

grizz - Sunday, October 21, 2007 - 12:19pm

This a piece I made to donate to our AABA scholorship auction. An apprentice of mine said it was a acorn tree, not a oak tree so the name stuck.

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Interesting piece, Grizz!

Rich Waugh - Sunday, October 21, 2007 - 4:40pm

Interesting piece, Grizz! I'd like to hear some more about the process of making it when you get a few minutes to enlighten us. Thanks!

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Really came out nice, Grizz.

Bill Roberts (not verified) - Sunday, October 21, 2007 - 8:35pm

Really came out nice, Grizz. I love all the details. That squirrel came out sweet. Very stylized leaves.....Is that tapered tube?
Great Donation.
Bill

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The tree is all made from

grizz - Sunday, October 21, 2007 - 9:11pm

The tree is all made from various sizes of solid mild steel except for the main part of the trunk, it was from a piece of 3" X .120 dom I had lying around, all textured on the power hammer, then welded and final texturing done by hand and die grinder.

The hummingbirds , spider and squirrel are all forged from mild steel (one piece each) with a bit of grinding to fine tune, but all the texturing was done hot and by hand. One addition I did weld on the wings of the hummingbirds!

A japanese Brown patina was used on all but the squirrel, then gulders paste to highlight the leaves, acorns and birds. The squirrel was finished using a hot oil finish and then hot wax and lastly guilders paste to give him life.

This was a fun project. I really did not have time to do it but I needed to do it, I needed a break from the everday regular work.

At our auction there are a couple of contests to enter into, There are three catagories , Beginneres, intermediate and Advanced, then the was an overall theme that the piece could be judge in. The them this year was "creatures big and small". I was fortunate enough to win the advanced catagory, and then the theme catagory, WOW. I've never won any thing before.
"GRIZZ"

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