I made these nail clippers in Sculpture I. The assignment was to take something small and scale it up or something really big and scale it down. I picked nail clippers, a tool of which I am very particular. You're about to make a cut that requires precision so you want a tool that's going to be 1. easy to control 2. predictable and 3. safe i.e. you want a wide lever that's contoured to your thumb. NOT flat. NOT pointy. DUH. But I digress...
Anyway, these are made of sheet metal (about 1/16" thick...I think 16 gauge, but honestly I have no idea) and are approximately 30" long. To scale the thickness of the components accurately, I added a 9/16"h edge. The tops and edges are welded together, and there is a false bottom i.e. no bottom piece on the lever, nor the nail file, nor either of the cutting plates.
The pin is made frame a 2" diameter steel pipe I found at the local hardware store, then cut with the plasma cutter, then fitted with additional carefully-planned pieces of sheet steel. It's quite a little Frankenstein's monster, I must say.
The welds were all squared away with the angle grinder, or in some cases various air tool attachments. The pattern on the nail file was accomplished by sawing with a triangular file along a straight edge.
The clippers disassemble into three components – base, lever and pin – just like the real thing. This project really afforded me the opportunity to practice my newly acquired welding abilities as well as to brush up on my math and geometry skills. I know this isn't high art, but it sure puts a smile on someone's face when they first see it – especially when I press down on the lever and they see the cutters bite down. It's pretty great and I'm excited to share it with you!
p.s. I decided to add a rust patina. Look, these things aren't chrome. The edges and surfaces were never perfect or buffed nor were they meant to perfectly resemble real-life clippers with 100% realism. And even real clippers eventually experience some wear and tarnish and rust. So let's not kid ourselves about what we have here...a cute little lawn ornament (which I will mount with a heavy-duty chain because you know some enterprising little dudes will one day scheme to lift them). My homemade patina consisted of approx 16 oz. peroxide, 8 oz. vinegar and a couple tablespoons of salt, applied after heating the metal surface with a blowtorch. I barely used 4 oz. of the solution.