When Panamarenko asked me to build those metal crabs I first doubted. I never worked with stainless steel before... But I accepted the challenge and figured out how to build six big crabs starting with only a drawing from the master himself. It took me quite some time to cut al the metal parts by hand and "fold" them into these six sculptures. Everything is held together with thousands of stainless steel rivets, also drawn in by hand. The stainless steel is 316L - a very fine quality - so these crabs will probably survive us all...
Ik twijfelde eerst toen Panamarenko me vroeg om deze metalen krabben te maken. Ik had eerlijk gezegd nog nooit met roestvrij staal gewerkt... Maar ik nam de uitdaging aan en vond gaandeweg een manier om die krabben te bouwen. Het enige wat ik had was een tekening van Panamarenko. Het duurde eeuwen om alle onderdelen uit de stalen platen te knippen en die tot zes grote krabben te plooien. Alles hangt samen met duizenden klinknagels, ook met de hand ingetrokken. Het roestvrije staal is 316L - één van de beste kwaliteiten - dus deze krabben zullen ons allemaal overleven...
Follow below how I developed and constructed the six stainless steel crabs.
Recipe:
Cut a bit more than thousand pattern pieces out of the finest stainless steel 316L - use a thickness of 0,6 mm (use 1 mm of thickness for the bodyparts, those need to be solid).
Take 48 meter of solid stainless steel threaded rod with a diameter of 16 mm and cut to the desired lengths.
Provide all of the metal pattern pieces with thousands of holes and then fold all the metal parts and rods together untill you become the image of six crabs.
Pull everything together with thousands of stainless steel rivets.
Afterwords sit back, relax and enjoy...
and then never do that again. ;-)
R.I.P. Panamarenko.
