Stainless Steel Rose from Scrap Metal

This is a rose sculpture I TIG (GTAW) welded at school. It is made from left-over stainless steel scraps that were straight off the shop floor at my school welding shop. I believe this project embodies the topic of this contest in a few ways. The first and most obvious being that it was completely constructed from scrap metal. And not just typical scrap...the scraps in our shop go through a series of re-uses until they reach a size that is no longer easily used in class and is then shipped to the scrap yard for recycling. I made sure to grab the majority of my scraps from the end bin to make sure the scraps had been re-used as much as possible before I began building with them. Secondly, the topic of my piece is a rose which is an embodiment and symbol of nature's beauty. I dedicated roughly 55 hours of shop time to obtain the final product to replicate that beauty as closely as I could. Lastly, the material I used for the project was stainless steel. I did this to give the final piece a certain level of complexity both visual and inherent. It stands as a icon that something as industrial as steel can be used to create one of nature's softest, most stunning symbols. It also shows that this relationship between industry and nature can be renewable and sustainable...hence the "Stainless" aspect of it.

Step 1: Equipment & Materials

Equipment:
- TIG (GTAW) or MIG (GMAW) Welder
- Stationary Belt Sander
- Bead Blasting Cabinet - Optional
- 4 1/2" Angle Grinder with Abrasion/Cutting Wheels
- Bench Grinder - Optional
- Metal Work Bench to Attach Ground Cable
- Bench Vise
- Ball-Peen Hammer
- Vise Grips
- Sheet Metal Sheers
- Dremel Tool with Grinding and Polishing Bits - Optional
- Typical Welding/Fabrication Safety Equipment

Materials:
- 18, 20, or 22ga Stainless Steel Sheet Metal Scraps
- 1/4" Bar Stock (Round or Square)
- Stainless Steel Filler Rod (for TIG)
- Stainless Steel Electrode Wire (for MIG)

Comments

[dprice19]

Thanks for the walkthrough, this was my first real metal working project! I TIG welded this with a Lincoln Electric Precision 275 TIG welder.This was an awesome project to do. I used 24 ga. mild steel for all the petals and leaves. We didn't have any rod around, so i made the stem from turned down allthread. I tried making the prickers out of the 24 ga. but it was too thin to build up properly, so I wound up just beading up welds. Also, instead of using mild steel filler metal I used 304L rod, which actually added a real unique coloring element once I blued it. The base was made out of a piece of 5/8" flat stock. I took a plasma cutter to the sides, to give it the striations. Finished up by a nice bluing and oil bath! Roughly 35-40 hours of throwing misbent pieces, swearing and fun later! Thank you so much, I had a great time doing this!

[jaredzeuli]

Looks great. You did a very good job of making your petals consistent. That is definitely the hardest part. I'm glad to see it also took you a long time to finish. My first one took forever, but I can do them in less than half the time now!

P.S. Good idea for a simple, weighed base.

[hpirinen]

I have been flipping trough different ways and ideas how to make roses/flowers from steel before. First one I made roughly 10 years ago in school for a "rustic" gate, from mild steel. I'm bummed out though that I didn't have the patience to read all these comments in here, because I would have wanted to steal MIGDHORSE's idea about the curled petals, looks really nice ;)

So here's my 20 cents on the matter of building it:
As I said, I have made steel roses before, from mild steel and 430 stainless. This newest one is made from pure 304L stainless. Biggest difference was, that 430 (and of course mild steel) was alot more easier to cold form, as 304L starts to harden after some amount of hammering and shaping > becomes brittle.

I welded the rose petals together with a TIG, which I borrowed from a friend. Tungsten was already around 1/2" long and last thing i managed to do with it was to attach the stem to the bud. After that it seemed impossible to weld rest of the leaves to the stem, as all of the leaves and petals were made from 0.5mm sheet (I believe its 25 or 26 gauge) and the welding arc got too long which resulted as a big gaping hole and a scorched leaf. So as all the shops were closed had to break out acetylene torch and silver soldered all the leaves etc. in place.

I made the petals just by cutting a bunch of different size rectangulars, and then by using snips just made them closer to the desired shape. Didn't fuzz about the shape much, no outlining etc. because I was sure that I can't form them all to same shape or weld them exactly the same way.

Steel was already polished so I had to choose the tools wisely as I did not want to scratch the steel. The weight of the rose got so out of hand because of the number of petals so I decided to use 2kg piece of Finnish bedrock as a stand.

Took little bit less that 20 hours, just aviator snips, before mentioned welding machines, small tinsman's hammer, plastic hammer, rounded up pliers and my Leatherman Surge.

And i made this for my mothers birthday present :)

[jaredzeuli]

I like the rock base. Good job!

[johnny08]

i used this as a guildline for the rose i made, it really helped out alot thanks!!!! this is how one of them came out, got the stem on later.

[jaredzeuli]

I'm glad you liked it. Thanks.

[ryco1995]

Can you make a video of this?

[jaredzeuli]

Of which part? This is a project would be hard to show in a short video because a lot of the steps take a lot of time.

[troopersmachine]

Great instructable, very inspiring.

[Wesley666]

I have made these before and just found this today! Great work! I have never used the ice cream cone shape though. I usually use Reuleaux triangles for the shape of the petals, although the first 2 usually start out ice cream cone shaped. I like the look of the Reuleaux triangles and I have always had an easy time making and finishing the flower with them, they have a nice shape to them, even when bent and curled, but don't make the flower too tall, although the ice cream cones you used don't seem to have made the flower tall either. Personal preference I guess. I think the ice cream cones might be a little harder to cut out, tighter turn for the semicircular top of them possibly, but I can't think of any other possible differences for using one over the other.

I just made one of these the other day actually, for a very unique, and special person I really want to get to know better as an ice breaker, and I was Googling it see what other flowers people have made, that is how I found your 'Ible. I am planning on making a bouquet of assorted flowers for this person, and a rose needed to be included. I used 14 and 16 gauge metal though and with only a pair of needle nose pliers, ball peen hammer and a welder it took a lot of time to make this one, not too mention my hands hurt quite a bit, but I think it looks great. I also used a blowtorch, a lot. I had to use heavy material because I make them only from garbage, and heavier material was all anyone threw away at the dump lately. Was easier to weld then some thin stuff. My Hobart GF250 (I believe its a GF250, its old and the only info not faded too much is the HOBART letters) went down the other day, the Ford 300 I6 won't start so I bought a Mastercraft MIG welder for the time being. Got it on sale for $250 regular $650. Great little welder actually. I had to make some of my welds look as good as possible while welding because I couldn't grind them down because I only have 2 big 20 amp twin Makita grinders in my shop which are too large and hard to deal with for this type of work, but all the welds turned out looking pretty great!

Sorry if the picture isn't the best, I used a cellphone and I had a hard time finding a good angle to photograph the flower. It really needs to be seen in person.

[jaredzeuli]

Nice job especially with the metal stock and tools you had. Keep up the good work and posting pics. I'm also about to buy a really nice TIG welder like I had in school. I have made a few of this with my Millermatic 252, but I spend far too much time grinding off the the unavoidable excess weld material left by MIG welding.

[Wesley666]

I didn't have much problem with excess from the MIG, but I knew I could not fix anything so I made sure do it good the first time. I prefer stick welders over anything else and I would suggest you take a peek at a Lincoln Electric Idealarc. I think they run about $800 at Princess Auto (They don't have them n their website however, but i have seen them in store), they have AC, DC, and DC Reverse and go from 50 amps up to 350 amps and you can weld pretty much anything with it. I have an older one and I love it, plus then you can use stainless rod and make your welds stainless steel as well.

That is one thing about my rose, its not stainless so it rusts, so what I want to do is acid bath it, and clear coat the stem, then let the flower portion rust before clear coating it. I think it would look really cool if you let the flower rust to give it color, that brown red color. I sprayed it with WD-40 for now though so nothing rusts, but I rubbed a little off on the flower and that little test area has turned a nice burgundy color.

I am going to start on a Carnation soon, they look similar to roses, but they have a lot larger folds and more random petal arrangement. I want it to be a good size, and nice and round like the snowballs on Snowball Trees.

[Wesley666]

I am thinking of making an orchid, a carnation, bleeding heart, a chrysanthemum would be cool but a huge pain I imagine, and a bird of paradise I think would be feasible. I will see how it goes.

[MIGDHORSE]

loved your tutorial. here's my version. not quite as refined. i wanted it to be a close replica to a rose i had in the shop. so i folded some of the petals to make the classic point you see the petals making once the rose starts to die. i only have a die grinder and a bend grinder and some pliers and a millermatic 180 220v. i spend probably 15-18 total hours. 23 pieces in the bloom. and various other pieces. i couldnt get my thorns quite as nice as yours though, i plan on using a dremel to shape them next try. thanks again for your awesome tutorial.

[jaredzeuli]

Very nice! It definitely has a different look to it. Like you described, It has more of an aged rose that has the petals beginning to curl. I'm glad you liked the instructable. I have made a couple of different types of flowers and I took pictures, so when I find time I will try and post new instructables.

[the mechanical engineer]

wow. you must have a very nice girlfriend to do that.

[jaredzeuli]

I 'had' a nice girlfriend.  We actually broke up before I gave it to her, so it will remain mine!!!!

[Roflolommo]

omg same thing happened to me. I think metal flowers are cursed.

[electridanger]

they are cursed...I made one out of thin sheet copper...I left it for her and talked to her later and she said that she didn't want to date...although I felt it was that she didn't want to date me...I didn't take it back though...

[lance_r]

I made my girlfriend a metal rose and gave it to her she liked it so my next project I made a sculpture with her name for christmas.. She broke up with me before I could give her the sculpture so I took it (the sculpture that is) to the back yard with a sledge hammer and vented a bit. The following day I brought into class and plasma torched the crap out of it hahaha

[xxMelxx]

Very Beautiful! I Will Try Making One This Week As A Christmas Gift For My Grandmother Hope It Turns Out As Nice As Yours :) I Already Made A Daisy-Like Flower In A Pot But A Rose Just Seems Alot More Challenging .

[Nawaz]

By the way, you could use some polishing compound and a small buffing wheel to give it a shiny look :)

[Nawaz]

wow..nice..was planning to do something similar. Got a better idea about how am gonna do it now..thanks for sharing..very nice instructable :)

[RocketManDave]

Reminds me of the end of the film "District 9".

[es30381]

hey mate, excellent instructable..... really informative. can i please just ask the approximate sizes of your largest and smallest petals and leaves and petals and stuff. thanks mate, it's a huge help. ES

[jaredzeuli]

I know its hard to read because Instructables resized the image, but in the second step the AutoCAD drawing has the sizes. The petals range from about 1/2" to 3" in length. The leaves are about 2" in length. And the thorns are about 5/8" in length.

[es30381]

thanks mate, huge help.

[rjasso]

hers mine
i used a flux core mig welder to weld them together

[cmetals]

here is my take on the stainless rose

[jaredzeuli]

Hahaha, are those spoons!?! That's pretty cool and really creative. I was looking at the picture and I was about to comment on how smooth you were able to make the contours of the petals, but then it struck me...all of those petals have the exact same shape! My first thought was, "Oh, he made a mold or plug and hammered them into uniform shapes." About a spit second after that thought, my brain made the connection and I knew they were spoons! It looks great. I feel it resembles other flowers more than a rose, but still a cool idea. I really like found art sculptures.

[duboisvb]

Thanks for the instructable. I made the attached rose over this past weekend for my wife for valentines day. It is not nearly as polished as yours but it turned out ok and it was fun to do.

[jaredzeuli]

It resembles a tulip more than a rose, but still looks nice. I've been slammed with work lately, but I have been meaning to try a few other types of flowers. I will try my best to post them when I'm done. I've already drawn up plans for a couple of them.

[JRG1]

Nice stuff.I am new here and here is a rose that I made recently.what ya think?

[jaredzeuli]

Yeah, it looks good. I like how you added character to the leaves by adding stamping marks to them. If you try another one, I would focus on giving the leaves a little more shape to them on the shorter axis of the oval, so that they don't look as flat. Double bends are tricky to do, but you can get the hang of them with a little trial and error. Also, it looks like you didn't grind off your welds at the base of the leaves and petals. This step usually only takes a minute or two and makes the final product much more pleasing to the eye.

[hottamaleindustries]

Would this work with copper?

[jaredzeuli]

Copper requires lots of experience and still to weld. I've only done it a few times and it wasn't for art projects. It's not easy. Your best bet is to do it in steel and have it copper plated. I've already considered doing this with one of my next roses.

[D$]

maby although you would need some serious equipment and if your not carefull the copper will turn grey from heat i've only done some copper and im pretty sure the only way you can weld it is tig

[vlxwgn]

You can silver solder copper fairly easily, however you will either need to try and solder the entire bloom together at once or get different levels (pure, sterling, enameling, hard, medium and easy... from highest heat required to lowest respectively) of silver solder that melt at different heat, the inner most would use the highest heat and the outer most would use the least in order to stay together as you were building it. other than that the tools required would be far less expensive.

[Arron199]

I made mine in under 3 hrs, but im a boilermaler by trade. Using tin snips to cut the material saves a huge amount of time, $18 an hour!!?? Where in the world is that considered ok for this type of work? Dont mean to offend anyone but artistic metal work earns you no less than $40ph here :s

Anyway, awsome instructable and nice finnished product.

[jaredzeuli]

Yeah, I moved up to tin ships and lighter gauge metal on the second rose which dramatically reduce the manufacture time. I can make one with the same quality as my orginal in a work day (8-12 hours) and even faster if I prep all the pieces the day before and just do shaping and assembly in one day. If I got into selling more of them on a regular basis I could look into ordering larger amounts of water jetted pieces and just focus on assembly, which would easily shave hours off the overall job. Shaping and grinding still occupies most of the time.