Steel Flower

Hello everyone! Mother's Day is almost upon us, which reminded me of this Mother's Day gift I made a few years back. I know there are lots of metal flowers on here and on the internet in general, but this is how I did it, and perhaps a technique or two from here along with another from a different tutorial and so on will help you to make the perfect Mother's Day gift.

18-22ga steel (other metals will work fine, but dictate your options for fastening everything together)

Roughly 1 foot (30cm) of roughly 3/16" (5mm) steel rod (or your metal of choice)

Roughly 2 inches (50mm) of 1/16" (2mm) steel (or other metal) rod

Shears or tin-snips (check the rating on yours before getting your metal, not many are rated for 18ga)

Ball-peen hammer (or any hammer meant for striking steel; no framing or claw hammers)

Chisel (optional, for leaves)

Needle-nose pliers (preferably a beat-up pair you don't care for, or something to hold what you'll be hammering)

Anvil-like object (I used a piece of old railroad rail, don't use something that can shatter or chip, like concrete)

Piece of scrap wood

A means of fastening everything together (MIG or TIG welder, propane torch and solder, or use stem as a rivet)

An angle grinder is very helpful, but not strictly necessary, and can be used for the cutting if desired.

Sandpaper (220 grit looks nice on the stem, but 150 might also be decent)

Safety Gear (gloves, eye protection, hearing protection)

This decision will determine your options for how to put it all together later, so it deserves some thought. For example, if you make everything out of steel, you can MIG or TIG weld it, torch or TIG braze it, torch solder it, or use the stem as a rivet to hold the petals together. If it's made of something else like brass or another non-ferrous (not iron-based) metal, you will be limited to soldering, brazingTIG welding, or riveting.

The way I did it, and the easiest is using steel and a MIG welder, but I'll talk through the other options as not everyone has a welder or may want to try something else.

SAFETY: At minimum you should be wearing gloves here, it's not difficult to get a really good slice in the webbing between your fingers or thumb, your palm, wrist, etc. from cut sheet-metal and not even notice until the blood's dripping off your fingers or elbow. Not trying to scare anyone, the metal's not out to get anyone, but take care. And if you're using an angle grinder or other power tool, use eye and hearing protection!

OK, enough from the safety police. There's no tricky business here and no need to get fancy just yet, just cut out a bunch of squares starting at approximately 2 inches, slowly going down in size to a little over an inch or so. I did about 18 or so, but depending on what look you are going for you could do less or more, bigger or smaller. If you're new to sheet-metal, maybe cut out some extras, experiment, and at worst you'll end up with some extra practice pieces.

Once your petals are cut out or as you cut them out, heavily round one corner (wide radius), and then lightly round a corner on each side (total of 3 rounded corners, one sharp). You can kind of see what I'm talking about in the pic, the lower piece of steel. By the way, I did not do my hammering on the nice table, everything was just there fora quick picture :p

Alright! It's the moment we've all been waiting for, time to go all Thor on these suckers! Minus the lightning at least. Despite what I just said, it doesn't take a whole lot of force (shouldn't be straining or anything), but it will take a fair amount of time. I would HIGHLY recommend hearing protection as there's a fair amount of hammering that will be taking place, and it is not quiet (as one would imagine, hammering steel on a piece of steel with a steel hammer).

Basically you hold the sharp corner with the needle-nose pliers and hammer away, focusing mostly at the edges furthest from the sharp corner. If you focus too much on the edge, you may get tiny cracks or splits, so if your petal is paper thin there, you may want to move. While hammering, you should get some bounce out of the hammer, which is nice to get you ready for the next blow. It ended up kinda zen for me after awhile, very relaxing (I had some good earmuffs on).

At first they will start to look a lot like ginkgo biloba leaves, like the one in the last pic with the rail and tools. Once the petals are thinned like that, it's time to add some curves. Hold your petal on top of the piece of scrap wood, and lightly hammer with the ball peen side near the middle of the petal, a bit past where you hold it. This will start the first curve/depression seen in the close-up pic of the petal. Don't worry if it just looks dented, keep at it with fairly light blows until the marks smooth out and you get some definition.

Then, turn it over and start hammering with the same ball-peen side in a curve just outside the curve/dent you just made. This is the crest or crown of the petal. Don't go all the way out to the edge, you'll want to that edge to go back down to complete the petal shape. Once you have some shape in your petal, flip it again and hold it so the edge of the petal is on the edge of the scrap wood. Begin very LIGHTLY to hammer the edge over so it curves down. If it helps, round the edge of the wood with a file, sandpaper, or heck, the hammer.

The drawn-on close-up of the petal shows the general areas to be hammered into curves in red. This is where some practice petals come in handy.

If you wish to make leaves, cut them out into rough leaf shapes. Hammering will be very similar, except the leaf will be curved lightly by lightly hammering it into the wood along its length. To make it look leafy, very lightly chisel a line down its center, the smaller lines branching out from that line. The pic I have posted is pretty bad, but hopefully you get where I'm going with this.

After awhile you should have a small pile of petals. This is where we come to the crossroads. No matter the direction you choose, remember to (you guessed it) use the proper protective equipment, ie. gloves for pretty much every method, welding helmet and non-flammable clothes for welding, non-flammable clothes for soldering (and watch where you point that torch!), and eye protection for using the stem as a rivet.

If you will be welding the petals, arrange two (cleaned) petals so they overlap slightly (specifically the largest petal will be overlapped by the second largest petal) and weld the sharp corners together (I know, some of you welders just winced at me mentioning to weld sharp sheet-metal corners together, you can round them if you really want). Just be careful not to melt the corners back.

Repeat this using smaller petals as you go, continuing in a spiral fashion until you run out of petals or it looks good to you.

If you are soldering (or brazing), use the same pattern (and clean the petals as well), but be quick with the torch; you want the solder to be melted for as little time as possible so it doesn't just run off. This will be tricky as your solder joints will all be almost directly on top of each other, and you will have to get creative with clamping the petals in place. Be aware that there will likely be solder dripping underneath, and plan accordingly (no flammable stuff or your shoes underneath).

If you are using the stem as a rivet, this will entail some work. You will need to reduce the diameter of the end of the stem by grinding or some similar method to a length dictated by the amount of petals you have and their thickness at their base, plus approximately 1/8". You will have to drill a hole very near the sharp corner every petal to the reduced diameter of the stem; make it a snug fit that doesn't leave any slop. It may be best to drill first and grind the end of the stem to match the holes.

In the same overlapping spiral pattern, add each petal onto the stem. Once complete, peen the protruding bit of stem (like a rivet) with the ball-peen end of the ball-peen hammer (once again, like a rivet :p) until the petals are held tight. If you have a vise, this would be a good time to use it, clamping the stem very near to the base petal.

This part is fairly simple, just weld the stem to the bottom of the flower (after cleaning the surfaces to be joined). There should be a bit of weld underneath from where the petals were joined, so there shouldn't be much of a chance of burning through the petals with the right settings.

The advice from soldering still stands true here: clean the surfaces to be joined, get in and out quickly so as not to disturb the petal joints. Good luck.

At this point, you can get a nice finish on the stem by grasping the stem with sandpaper, then pulling it down its length; gives it a nice brushed look. The whole flower looks much more organic if you put a very subtle curve or two in it as well, a perfectly straight stem just doesn't look right.

Another tricky part is welding the leaves on. You will need to be spot-on with your settings to avoid burning through, as you will be welding what is likely very thin sheet-metal to thin wire that is welded to the stem. I would recommend a practice weld of something similar, perhaps a practice petal or leaf.

If need be, clean up the joints with a very light touch from an angle grinder or file. What you should have at the end is something that looks like a flower.

Another nice thing about using steel for this is the ability to add color via heat. I used a heat gun, but a propane torch would also do the trick, just remember to keep it moving constantly or you may end up with a polka-dotted flower. I tried this out on some practice petals first, thought it turned out alright, then did all of the petals. The gold at the edges of the practice petals looks kinda neat, maybe I'll try to make a gold-colored flower someday.

Be aware that if you use a heat gun, there will be a whole lot of nothing, and then it will start moving pretty quickly: faint straw to gold to brownish to reddish to purple to blue to grey. Be ready for it, 'cause if you overshoot, you'll have to refinish the petals with a media blaster, scotch brite, wire brush, etc. if you want to try again. Practice petals for the win...

I think my flower turned OK for my first try at something like this, though I wish I had made the petals a bit smaller towards the center, and maybe left more color to the middle. Either way, the gift was well received, good luck with yours should you try it!