Suspended Tap

[Gareth J]

Inspired by those "magic tap" fountain sculptures you sometimes see.

It's probably best you don't inspect the welds too carefully some are pretty ugly. brazing or if you could get it clean enough, tigging, would probably be neater.

I gave a similar one to a friend a few years ago when I moved out of a shared house as I couldn't be bothered to pack it carefully. Always liked it so I made another.

Trickiest bit (after cleaning the chain!) is keeping the welds minimal enough to preserve the look of the chain without it being too wobbly. I don't like the large loop at the base in the pics so have smooshed that down a bit as it isn't welded.

Real easy to make. I think the chains were from a pushbike and a honda cub or a bantam. I may dangle a second pushbike chain in there to see what it looks like.

 

[Freddy0309]

i really like that well done bud

 

[julianf]

If you ever want to make another, i wonder how it would work out if you cleaned up the chain, fluxed it, and dunked it in a pan of molten lead?

Could even blast it after, to remove the lead from all but the internals?

 

[Gareth J]

If you ever want to make another, i wonder how it would work out if you cleaned up the chain, fluxed it, and dunked it in a pan of molten lead?

Could even blast it after, to remove the lead from all but the internals?

It wouldn't come without a lot of work but could potentially look great. Not sure if lead would hold up though. I had considered trying to weld it in situ by passing a load of current through it but I think it would just fizzle and melt the poorest conducting link...even if I had something big enough to dump that much current through it that is.

 

[brightspark]

its allready half done. just pein the link pins tight with a ball pein hammer and its rivited together

 

[Gareth J]

its allready half done. just pein the link pins tight with a ball pein hammer and its rivited together

Ahh, thought of that one. Aside from the difficulties of hammering it while suspended, it would make the chain straight as a ruler. You need a real worn chain with plenty of slop to get nice curves in the "wrong" direction. Also, I think it would bend

 

[edd]

The shadow behind looks good.

 

[Kent]

its a different thing to what you created with the industrial look but a saw a salmon mounted jumping up a stream of clear resin same could be one with a tap

 

[Gareth J]

Thanks for all the replies guys - love the technical suggestions. Its good to think about these things