My sound and lighting company, Central Wisconsin Audio Lights and Video, is providing sound and lighting equipment along with sound design services for the D.C. Everest school forest.? They are creating a diorama to be used as a teaching aid.? The diorama is being produced by Mark Mittlesteadt.? Mark’s web site and more information about this project can be found here and here.

As part of this project they needed some thing to support a mounted grouse taking flight.? They asked me to produce a tag alder made out of metal.

Here is what I started with.? A pile of twisted steel wire and rods.

If you look close they already look like twigs.

Once I had my plan in mind and several pieces cut I started to assemble the pieces on a steel platform.

Here are a few more parts attached and cleaned up.

With this project I cleaned the rust and dirt off the parts as I went.? I use a 4″ grinder with a wire wheel.? Usually if a weld can stand up to the grinder it is solid.

This shows the final assembly.? All the parts are there.? They just need some bending.

Final bending is done with the stick welder.? I struck an arc where I wanted each bend.? The arc leaves a mark or divot where it heats.? This adds to the texture of the final piece.? Here is a picture of my sculpture next to the real thing.

This is where it is going to end up.? You can see some more tag alder painted on the mural behind it.? Above is a fallen tree with a porcupine on it.? My piece will be surrounded by real tag alder and will support a grouse flushes out by the commotion of the porcupine climbing the tree.