Creating Welded Sculpture

In this generously illustrated guide, newly revised and updated, a well-known American sculptor shares his forty years of experience working with welded sculpture techniques. Nathan Cabot Hale begins with the basic assumption that it is necessary for a sculptor-welder to have the same professional skills as a good job-welder. To help readers gain those skills, he demonstrates both traditional and comparatively new welding methods step by step, including the oxyacetylene technique in modeling small-scale figurative sculpture.


Mr. Hale first discusses the basic tools and techniques of welded sculpture, then addresses the construction of abstract and organic shapes and modeling solid figures. This is followed by detailed coverage of finishing techniques, arc welding, and welding large-scale commissioned works. He even dispenses helpful practical advice on the economics of fine art — exhibiting work, staying alive, searching out public and private support, and more.


Over 80 helpful diagrams and more than 100 photographs accompany the text, demonstrating techniques and procedures and depicting works in progress as well as finished works. In a new chapter written specially for this edition, Mr. Hale shares the heartening artistic philosophy he has developed over his long and distinguished career. Sculptors at many levels of accomplishment will find his book instructive and inspiring.