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9. The hammer-forming begins.
8. The brass piece has been cut out, annealed and pickled, and lines drawn on it as guides for hammering.
7. Tracing around the paper pattern onto 16 gauge brass sheet. The paper pattern can be kept to use again.
6. The paper was cut while folded to ensure symmetry.
5. Now the Dip Seal skin is spread out as flat as possible onto paper and traced with a pencil.
4. Having used a sharp knife to cut the Dip Seal where I want the seam to be, I now remove the rubbery Dip Seal skin.
3. The model pulled out, the rubbery Dip Seal coating sets up immediately.
2. The clay model is submerged in "Dip Seal" which has been heated at 350° to a liquid state.
1. In order to determine the shape to cut out of sheet brass, the first step is a clay model.
For a much more detailed version of this process, watch this video
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20. The finished piece. The tail is the hanger, and the snake is held securely to the wood with two screws.
19. Fitting the snake to the piece of grapevine. Because of the two shapes and the way they fit together, I could not bend the tail to its final shape until after the two were put together, So I had to have the final polish and patina on it ahead of time.
18. Showing the first bit of texturing, only took a minute or two.
17. On the left, a rotary tool I made for the flexible shaft. As it revolves, each lobe acts like a little hammer, putting a hammer mark on the metal. This creates a nice texture reminiscent of snakeskin, in a very short time.