July 11, 2001
Sculptures cut through everyday monotony
Traverse City welding business creates curbside works of art
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
At the south end of Woodmere on Premier Drive, just across the railroad tracks, a strange assortment of animals and wildlife has sprouted by the curb. A rearing horse, a squatting frog and a butterfly share space with a giant flower and a grasshopper.
Made of machine cut steel pieces welded together, the pieces are sculptures created by Terry Walters, owner of Ace Welding and Machines, and two of his employees. Making dinosaurs, moose and bears is not such a long way from welding a trailer hitch, fabricating machine parts or cutting plates - and it is a lot more fun.
"Definitely my main business is the other stuff, but we have a lot of fun making the animals," Walters said. "It is always fun to do something different, instead of the same old monotonous things. But after you do 20 moose, that gets old, too."
Using the shop's computer-driven plasma cutting machine, Walters designs the objects on his computer at home and plugs the disk into the machine at the shop.
As easy as you can say "computer innovation" the machine cuts up a steel sheet into one of the sculpture's component parts, following the instructions on the computer disk. The cutter can cut plates of steel, aluminum, copper and brass up to one-inch thick as easy as a knife through, well, butter.
While it will never be the bread and butter of his business, the sculptures, coat racks, signs, chairs and handrails provide an interesting change after 19 years since his father opened the shop. In fact, when Walters was planning to purchase the new cutter to keep his business up with current technology, he always had doing artwork with it in the back of his mind.
"The manufacturer does not really promote this," said Walters, who purchased the cutter 18 months ago. "Their software is very basic in geometric shapes and it is hard for me to design all the arcs and cutting radiuses on it, so I do it at home on my computer there."
Walters comes in early some mornings to make time for the sculpting work. He also does not put a finish on the completed pieces, letting the metal discolor as it naturally does.
"I like to just let them do what they will," Walters said.
Some pieces require a little old-fashioned welding or shaping on the shop's roller, while a piece like the flower has Walters' hands-on touch.
"I bend parts of the flower petals myself, by hand," he said.
But the march of computer technology is firmly entrenched even in his general welding and repair business.
"The real change has been with computers since we opened," Walters said. "It is almost scary comparing what it used to be versus what business is like now with computers."