Making a Small Welded Steel Sculpture

This is an after-the-fact instructable as I did not take many pictures during the process.  I mainly just wanted to show off my sculpture ;)  It is a small sculpture of a dancer made from 1/4" and 1/8" diameter mild steel.

Step 1: Tools

The tools that I used to make this include: a hacksaw, metal files, a bench grinder, and a 110V MIG welder.  The MIG welder is not ideal, but it's what I had available.  A TIG welder would be much better suited to this type of work.  This instructable does not teach welding or shop safety.  Many community colleges offer welding classes and I would highly recommend this if you are interested in projects like this one.

Step 2: Concept

Here's a sketch of the concept.

Step 3: Materials

This sculpture is made with only 1/4" and 1/8" diameter mild steel rod.  The 1/8" diameter steel is used for her arms, everything else is made from the 1/4" diameter steel.  This sort of steel can be purchased at nearly any hardware store.

Step 4:

Here's the finished sculpture.  It's not as easy as it looks ;)   It took me about 4 hours
of cutting, welding, filing and grinding to reach this point.  The welds are far from perfect and a TIG welder would have been more suitable for this sort of work, but I'm relatively happy with the results.