I made a whale tail using blacksmithing techniques

First, photo of the final product. It still needs to get attached to a base but that will come in a future post.

Edit: Here is the final final piece with the base attached: http://imgur.com/a/LTsFs

Modeling the design with wire first

Applied some clay on the wire to get a nice and smoothed 3D idea of the final piece.

Extracting the sheet cutouts from the clay model.

Paper cutouts next to the metal ones. This was made in 1.5mm stainless

First hits with the hammer

Top piece is still rough, the bottom was first shaped like the top one and then smoothed with a flat hammer

Clay models tarted cracking but still served its purpose

The two halves welded at spots

Testing the tail on the body

The tail bits shaped using lots of hammering

Big problem started to poke its head out here. That gap between the tail and body aint looking too good

That Gap O_o

Time to weld

Body done

Both done

Time to grind and clean

Getting smoother

Even smoother

Even smoother

MMmmm.... that's smooth

It felt like silk, so smooth

Polished but not joined. Always try to complete a piece to its fullest before moving onto the next step

Closed the gap with a horrendous welding job

Thank god for my Dremel

Here she is smoothed and in need of a polish. This is the base on which it'll finally be attached (Pics of that to follow)

Done

Finished

Shiny

As the metal piece got smoother, the clay one got worse and worse. Might call this piece the whale of Dorian Gray