Predator…A Submarine Sea Sculpture

This piece just sort of popped into my mind. The end product of this sculpture is from another lifetime. I served in the submarine service of the United States Navy for the 20 years of my service. I was 10 years enlisted and 10 years as a naval officer. The real understanding of the sculpture rests with those who have been there.

Predator is a sculpture of a piece of ocean with a submarine periscope sticking up. The water is in steel plate, carved and gouged to the shape of water waves. The periscope is in ebony, set into the steel, resting on a small bearing.

It is for someone I served with who is now a Naval Commander, soon to retire. We are old friends and mates. I saw him recently, after almost 25 years.
As if time had never passed.

---The Making of Predator---

7---The waves.

This is the surface of the ocean as sculpted in steel. The steel has been turned blue with heat.

I used a tool called a Carbon Arc (an alternative use of a welding machine). It uses the same carbons that used to illuminate the film in movie houses, except that this one has 300 amps of current behind it in addition to more than 100# (pounds per square inch) of air pressure to blow away the melted metal.

If you look carefully you can see what will be a wake that has been formed in the water. What I attempted to depict was an ocean surface.

Next I will lay out the wake angle and then it’s time for gas tungsten welding to produce an ocean surface that is like the smoothness seen behind a boat slowly moving through the water with a small wave in front of the boat.

The people in the welding lab were somewhat surprised at the results.

1---I’m not sure how I determined that I wanted the shape to be an oval. As it turned out, I’m pleased that I used that shape. This picture is the first cut of the 5/8” steel plate from the band saw. The white on the steel is masking tape that I used to cover the steel for layout.

The oval steel plate is 6.0 x 15.0 inches.

It will become the waves.

2---In the welding shop is a monster bandsaw with hydraulic clamps. The head of the bandsaw tilts as the work table stays horizontal.

I’m making a border for the oval steel plate by cutting kerfs in the steel that will allow me to bend this to the shape of the oval. It will then get welded onto the oval.

The square stock steel which I'm kerfing becomes like a hull, surrounding the perimeter of the oval base plate. It's welded underneath the plate/waves.

8---Here we go with the napkin drill. Well, not really. This was a post-it note. This is the beginning of getting the periscope made.

I found a piece of ebony and it’s on the lathe. Just turned to an oversized cylinder for now. Letting it cook overnight. Thinking about what I did wrong on the first one. Hope I don’t have to make 5 or 6 of these things.

After the periscope all that remains is the milling of the angle surface for the title tag.

3---Heating and beating and bending the base material that I’ve cut.

When small cuts are made to bend something straight into a curve, the cuts are called kerfs. The metal I’m bending needs to match the oval shape, and fit on the perimeter of the existing 5/8” steel plate (the waves). I’ll be welding it to appear seamless. Slow going.

Everybody told me it wouldn’t work, because as I bent the metal the kerfs would close, restricting the bend. That’s what happens with wood. But with heat, the outside of the metal stretches. I had the metal heated red to get the bends to work. The issue was to get them close so they could be tapped into position when I welded the seam. This took most of the morning.

9---This is a dummy that shows the milling in of the optics for the periscope. I had to dummy this up to see how it would look against the picture of a real periscope. The wood is not correct. I’m close, but some modifications need to be made.

10---On the wood lathe, working in ebony on the final periscope. The taper is different than the dummy. I like the line of the scope better.  I have to leave the CHUNK at what will be to top of the scope so that I can form the optical head of the scope, which will be hand-carved. Ultimately the periscope will ride on a small bearing press fit into a milled recess at the front of the steel wake.

11---The steel work is all but completed. The finished ebony periscope is in place.

12---The ebony periscope is done and a “carrying case” from Santos Mahogany has been mulled over, fabricated, stamped with my logo, and finished with wax. What’s left is to go get the nametag from the engraver, mill an area in the side of the steel, and fasten the tag.