Critters !!!

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Well, figured since everyone else was making critters and creatures (frogs, praying mantis, pigs, spiders and whatnot), I may as well make a few myself.My rusty rattlesnake and shop mascot, Fred.  Chain body, serving spoon head, washers and bearings for eyes, fondue fork for a tongue, and screws for fangs.Fred's li'l brother, George: bicycle chain body, washer head, eyes and tongue made from bicycle links, spring tail.My roadrunner: body is a GM wrench, head is a fireplace poker, wings are a spatula cut in half, legs are rear section of a bicycle frame, tail is a gate hinge minusthe barrel of the hinge itself:My Wrench-o-saurus, made from several open-end wrenches, a rusty monkey wrench, and a length of bicycle chain for the ridge and tail:And for those of you who remember your Egyptology, this is the Eye of Horus, made from several bicycle rims and half of a front fork:(Horus was an ancient Egyptian sky god known as Ra and was pictured in the form of a falcon.  The right eye represents a Peregrine Falcon's eye and themarkings around it, that includes the "teardrop" marking sometimes found below the eye. As the wedjet (also udjat or utchat), it also represented the sun, andwas associated with Horus' mother, Isis, and with wedjet another goddess, as well as the sun deity Ra. The mirror image, or left eye, sometimes representedthe moon and the god Djehuti (Thoth).)More info on The Eye of Horus can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_HorusLast edited by SpyGuy; 07-22-2009 at 05:59 PM.
Reply:You've got a regular menagerie goin' on there"Any day above ground is a good day"http://www.farmersamm.com/
Reply:haha..thats good stuff..I have no imagination for that kind of stuff at all.  More power to those who do
Reply:Thanks, guys.  These were just something fun to goof around with, and I have a couple more in the works.  Soon as I get finished with my scorpion (gotta put one of his claws on tomorrow), I'll post him up here, too.Doing stuff like this really isn't all that hard, Rider.  When you look at a piece of metal - say, a wrench - think about the shape of it.  "Hey, that monkey wrench with its jaws open kinda looks like a T-Rex's big mouth," .... stuff like that.  Open-end wrenches turn into claws and clawed feet, while box-ends turn into hip joints and legs.  Maybe you got a few old car flywheels sitting around - wheels, perhaps, for a yard-art car?  Splitting coffee cans down the sides gives you flat pieces to work with, or by drilling the center of the can and sticking a bolt in it, could make a nice sunflower or twirly-thingie.  Any kind of a channel - be it square, angle, or half-round - can be used to funnel water where you want it to go for a nice fountain (Harbor Freight has fountain motors on sale, btw...), and containers such as old washtubs and pots and metal buckets can be used for the bases.  Line drawings - go look some up.  Why can't those be made in metal as well as ink?  That's what I just did on the Eye of horus, and several other pieces I've done - found a picture, printed it out, worked from there.  (Just to give you an approximate size on that last piece, the center of the eye is a 12" bicycle rim, and the front fork piece is from a 27" ten-speed.  The welds have been cleaned up and ground down - shot the pic before I did that.)  I have an ocatillo (one of the many forms of cactus in Arizona) in my backyard made of 1/2" steel rod, bent in a wavy pattern, with small rods welded on top and painted to resemble flowers.  A guy down the street from me has a sajuaro (sah-wah-row) cactus made from stovepipe as his mailbox post (looks pretty cool, too!)Don't think that you don't have any imagination - I bet you do, and I bet you'll really surprise yourself.  Like Samm said a while back, "If ya can think of it, ya can build it."Last edited by SpyGuy; 07-22-2009 at 09:06 PM.
Reply:Pretty cool stuff. You have a good imagination to dream those things up. You do need to feed your rattlesnake though. I've never seen one quite that skinny.
Reply:LOL.  Wait until I find an old tow chain ....
Reply:nice work there
Reply:im gunna try to come up with something..wont be anything like what youve done.
Reply:Rider, just start looking around - you'd be surprised at the things you'll come up with.Two serving spoons?  Slice off the handles, cut one right down the center lengthwise, weld 'em on top of the other, and add some legs and antenna - you have a beetle / ladybug / damn big cockroach ....Got some junk bicycles?  Use the rear portion of the frame (the triangle) for a miniature trebuchet (go to instructables.com for that one - it's pretty cool!)  Rims?  Slice 'em apart, and weld them together in odd shapes - you can make table legs, clouds, bullseyes ...  Handlebars - good supports for table legs, crossmembers.  Gears?  Might make some nice metal sunflowers, especially if you use the cranks for the stems.Ever try "patchwork"?  Kinda neat.  You make a frame - say, a cowskull - then weld bits and scraps over the frame to create a "skin."  Doesn't matter if you leave gaps or not, that's part of the patchwork idea.  (I'd like to say doesn't matter how good/bad the welds are, either, but after seeing some REALLY awful welds .....)  Patchwork art looks good totally rusted out.Wrenches?  Weld three of them together in a triangle - do two sets like that, drill the flat sides, and you have brackets for a shelf.  Those cheap little flat-bar wrenches you get from IKEA and other places that include "tools" with their products?  I bent one into an "S" shape, using it for an exhaust pipe bracket on one of my pocketbikes.  Pliers?  Hmmm ... wouldn't one welded on top of the other look like a man, especially if you added a big washer for a head?  What about cutting the handles off and using them for lobster or crab claws?  Needlenose pliers - kinda resemble the claws of a scorpion, dont they (what d'ya think I'm using for mine)?  Allen wrenches - wouldn't those make neat legs for a bug?Shovel head - that would be good for a frog's body, maybe big bolts for legs and goofy cartoon eyes.  Got an old rake?  The thin fan-type (like the shape of a broom) could be used for the top of a rooster's head - the big flat ones for scraping dirt and rocks might wind up as really big teeth in a monster or dinosaur .... Garden shears?  Hmmm .... might be the body for a big bird with hand-rake feet?What about an old mailbox?  What the heck can you do with a mailbox?????  Add a rectangular box on the back, a funnel on top above the door, a triangle below the door, and big-and-little round pieces, and you have a train.  Not to mention all the fun you could have building a post for it ....See, these are all ideas I just came up with in the past five minutes.  Just start looking at the parts and pieces you have, and rev up your imagination!
Reply:paint would do wonders
Reply:Dunno if I plan on painting or not - the rusty look is okay for now.  I know, the welds aren't the greatest, still practicing ..... Good thing is, I don't plan on doing any structural welding for quite a while until I get better at what I'm doing, so rest easy on that one.
Reply:Here is some of the yard art I work on.  Take old farm machinery apart and try to build using these parts only.  Most welds were stick or mig with some plasma cutting added. Attached Images
Reply:Very cool!  Thanks for sharing those.  What are the jaws and legs of that junkyard dawg made from?(Looks like your REAL dog decided he needed a nap, too ....)
Reply:Yup, the dog was dog gone tired.  The junk all came from an old field disk.  The legs were the supports for the spindles and the jaws were for hand setting the depth control angle.
Reply:Well, just got finished with this little dude.  Main body is an electrical panel cover, legs and curved tail are a under-cabinet-mounted mug holder, pincers are needle-nose pliers with the handles sawn off, nuts for eyes, and that wicked-looking stinger is part of a meat tenderizer.  Oh, and the pincers open and close.Also made the Dieselpunk logo:Dieselpunk is like steampunk, but with internal combustion engines instead of steam engines.  I took a minor liberty and threw a wrench into the center of thedesign - it's supposed to be a flat bar - and that gear is from a bicycle sprocket.Last edited by SpyGuy; 08-01-2009 at 06:42 PM.
Reply:Well, finished up a couple more critters today.  Not sure which welding forum gave me the idea for them, but being the appreciative soul I am, I wanted to honor those people by trying my own hand at their creations.  (In other words, I blatantly stole their ideas, and built 'em myself! )  Seriously though, I thought the ideas were pretty cool, and since I had the parts and pieces .....Gobble, gobble - a couple of turkeys made from sawblades, horseshoe nails, pliers, and some assorted nuts and bolts:http://i404.photobucket.com/albums/p...Picture021.jpghttp://i404.photobucket.com/albums/p...Picture022.jpghttp://i404.photobucket.com/albums/p...Picture018.jpgAnd an armadillo made from horseshoes.  The tail and head are part of an old bicycle kickstand, with nuts for feet, eyes, and ears:http://i404.photobucket.com/albums/p...Picture019.jpghttp://i404.photobucket.com/albums/p...Picture023.jpg
Reply:Been a little while since I've posted in this thread, so thought I'd show you guys what else i've been up to lately ...Here's a pair of crabs I built (Crabs?? In Arizona???) from old horseshoes, nails, and pliers:A clam with a pearl inside, made from two sugar spoons (took me six months to find those spoons!):And a turtle, made from a bowl, some forks, and a spoon:
Reply:Not exactly "critters," but even more unbelievable - snowflakes in Arizona!  These were made starting with a lugnut in the center, and going from there ....
Reply:And finally, more critters.  I thought I'd build up some little creepy-crawlies, and came up with some spiders.  These were made out of lugnuts and nails (two nails per leg,times eight legs, times seven spiders, equals a whole LOT of time tacking ....), and several have actual gemstones glued to their backs.  These were sold at the TucsonGem And Mineral Show this year (last weekend).  Turns out the positioning of the legs makes for a good card-holder, and one of my customers (a vendor in the nextbooth over) bought one for exactly that reason.Just a plain ol' spider:This one has yellow amber on it:Those are carnelians:Because my g/f INSISTED on a pink one ... not sure what those stones were, not rose quartz, something else ...My favorite, with big chunks of turquoise:Last edited by SpyGuy; 02-17-2010 at 10:30 PM.
Reply:last time i heard of crabs in arizona they were on a toilet seat in the truckstop! pigpen
Reply:Not sure I want to know which truckstop you were in, PigPen .... Let's see ... shouldn't you be driving a red Mack Cruiseliner with a mirrored sleeper cab?  Running with Spider Mike and the Rubber Duck?  (And if y'all can figure out the references to the movie I'm talking about, it WAS shot in Arizona ....)  http://www.stlouisdumptrucks.com/Con...uck/index.html
Reply:Figured you guys would get a kick out of this ... my black widow spider:Just for reference, the rear end of the body is a 2" trailer hitch ball, legs are bicycle axles, and the tiles it's sitting on are 1' square.Terminator hand:(What .... never seen a "hand stand" before .....?) And a chair made from bicycle rims:
Reply:That is a big spider, looks good.The chair looks painful to sit on.Nice projects, I need to get on some of these odds and ends for funMiller 185Lincoln Weldanpower 225Lincoln 225 buzz boxCheap-o C&H 110v (my first welder)
Reply:The chair is actually not all that uncomfortable ... the spokes act as a kind of springy base.  I probably will add a cushion to it later, though ....Yes, that spider IS big!  Weighs at least a good five pounds, if not more .... I have him "climbing" up the wall right now, on a steel skewer bent into a hook.  The hook goes in a slot under the head and pincer piece, and attaches to a nail or shelf bracket so it looks like he's climbing a web strand.
Reply:I would hate to go to a party at your house. After wandering around inebriated I would eventually find my way into the yard, where I would be located the next day looking like i had come from the set of the Texas chainsaw massacre! when EMS arrived they'd see that I'd been: cut up by saw blade turkeys, impaled by meat tenderizing scorpions, shishkabobed by nail spiders, stabbed by a fork tortoise and last but not least, skewered by a fondue fork screw snake.Sounds pleasant right?but in all reality I love the creativity, once my pile of scrap metal grows I hope to make some fun stuff like this. kinda reminds me of a friend who made a tin man out of old chrome car bumpers and an m2 .50 cal machine gun.Oh man that's cool stuff1  I bet that's some fun thinking that stuff up. No doubt about it your good at it. Nice thread. Enjoyed seeing it Miller 302 Trailblazer/Custom TrailerMillermatic 350P/Spool gunMillermatic 252Miller Spectrum 875Miller Dynasty200DxHypertherm Powermax 85Tracker CNC 4X8 Pro Table (Down Draft)Visit us @ www.specialtyrepairscustommods.com
Reply:Originally Posted by CrawfordI would hate to go to a party at your house. After wandering around inebriated I would eventually find my way into the yard, where I would be located the next day looking like i had come from the set of the Texas chainsaw massacre! when EMS arrived they'd see that I'd been: cut up by saw blade turkeys, impaled by meat tenderizing scorpions, shishkabobed by nail spiders, stabbed by a fork tortoise and last but not least, skewered by a fondue fork screw snake.Sounds pleasant right?but in all reality I love the creativity, once my pile of scrap metal grows I hope to make some fun stuff like this. kinda reminds me of a friend who made a tin man out of old chrome car bumpers and an m2 .50 cal machine gun.
Reply:Originally Posted by SpyGuyNot to worry ... most of that stuff is parked off the patio where even an inebriated gentleman such as yourself would have a difficult time tripping over it .... The smaller spiders are hanging on the wall in the kitchen, the tortoise and turkeys are out beyond a low brick wall, the scorpion has been sold, and the snake is in my garage on a shelf, acting as "shop mascot."Now, the horseshoe cactus with the nails still in them and the barbed-wire cactus, however ...