Pacific NW Sculptors and Clackamas Community College of Oregon City, OR occasionally join forces and present one or two day seminars on the metal arts. Demonstrations and hands on workshops include forge work and welding of all types as well as lectures and presentations by some of the Northwest's finest metal sculptors. The state of the arts Metal Arts shop at Clackamas Community College is the largest of its kind on the West Coast.

C.C.C. also features a very reasonably priced bronze casting class where students participate in the entire bronze casting process from the construction of a wax model, through casting and chasing, to the application of patinas and waxes.

The following images were taken at two different workshops and though I have attempted to show the sequence of events in a process the artists depicted within a sequence will vary.

Tim Tanner lectures on the basics of electro-welding as well as his process of creating metal sculpture from household metal objects such as waffle irons, teapots, faucets and the occasional horseshoe. See Tim Tanner on the gallery page for a sample of his work.

Welding

The finished piece. Note the typewriter in the back about to meet it's doom.

Rick Gregg using the Oxy-Acetylene method to build up a sculpture from welding rod and sheet steel.

Heating with a hand-crank coal-burning forge

Shaping

Heating

Shaping

Dual Burner forge

Heating

Demonstrating a trip hammer named Lil' Abner constructed by Bert Romans

Bert demonstrating the use of Lil' Abner.

Rick Gregg using a forge of his own design

Shaping

Demonstrating a rolling mill

Devin Field-Lawrence making a paper template

Which is transfered to a piece of sheet steel and cut out. The quick way to cut sheet steel is with a plasma cutter like the one in use here.

The steel piece can then be shaping using a trip hammer or a rolling mill.

The finished piece can then be welded to the frame.