The Steel Hearth Cricket
When I was a kid, my father made what I thought were absolutely amazing little welded sculptures. The ones I loved the most were metal crickets made out of railroad spikes and steel rod. Painted matte black, there was something about them that was both old-fashioned and futuristic (everything is steel in the future!); both poor, blue-collar Americana and timeless, white-collar classy. That is, until he mentally regressed to the age of 13 and started welding male and female genitalia to them so they could be mounted together and all of the equally emotionally-stunted adults could snicker at them.
Time passed and, as far as I know, all of those railroad-spike crickets were discarded and forgotten. Still, I never forgot the simple elegance of those (SFW) hearth crickets. (I never forgot the NSFW ones, either, apparently, but let’s never speak of them again.) So when I finally got to a place in my life where I could have my own workshop and my own metalworking equipment, the very first thing I did was attempt to recreate (from memory) that classy hearth cricket that so enthralled me as a kid.
I ended up buying a bunch of (legal) railroad spikes and some thin steel rod from the Jerseyville Farm & Home Supply, sat down with my notebook and a pencil, and started sketching proportions. When it looked good, I measured out the rod, cut it, deburred the cut ends, bent it into shape, and MIG welded it all together. I still had to bend the legs into the proper positioning so it would stand upright properly. Once it all cooled, I cleaned it up and gave it a few coats of matte black Rust-Oleum.
I’m not certain if it looks exactly the way they looked when I was a kid (memory can be a funny thing), but I’m super happy with the result from my first welding project in about 40 years! And, NO!, I’m NEVER going to add genitalia. So don’t even ask!
