Greetings Fellow Humans,
I have started building a mechanical panther, and will be posting select photos of the build process as I charge toward completion. The finished piece should be about 30 inches long. I started out with the head, as that is the part that is most difficult to build and has the fewest options for scaling. I used a piece of a connecting rod for the nose and brow, and built from there. The eyes are a sort of bearing type part of the rocker arm system on an engine, and as such they need to be blasted with fire for quite a while to get the oil out of them so they can be welded, otherwise they tend to explode.
Once the eyes, nose and mouth are in place, I can build around them to fill out the rest of the head.
The next thing I need is a spine, as it is very helpful in visualizing the shape of the panther's body. Since the piece will be too long to fit into my sandblasting cabinet, I had to make two joints in the spine so that it can be taken apart.
Stay tuned for more progress posts as I make more... well, progress.
Thanks for reading!