A giant project for HadFab
The figure of Anthony Gormley's crouching man starts to come together
A Scottish steel fabricator is using its expertise to produce a giant Anthony Gormley sculpture of a crouching man.
Had-Fab, based in Haddington near Edinburgh, has many years of experience in producing complete structures, fixtures, fittings and towers for power and telecommunications. It is now utilising this expertise to produce a unique statue designed by Antony Gormley and commissioned by the Dutch government for the town of Lelystad.
Antony Gormley’s previous works include the iconic 'Angel of the North' and 'Another Place' – an installation of 100 cast-iron, life-size figures spread out along three kilometers of the foreshore on Crosby beach near Liverpool.
The new 25 metre high statue, depicting a crouching man, will be completely constructed from steel angle profiles produced by HadFab on new Ficep CNC Angle Line machine purchased specifically for this project.
There are many challenges to be overcome with this hugely complicated structure and Tekla software was used after the initial shape was designed in collaboration with Cambridge University. The model was detailed in Tekla structures and interfaced with Steel Projects WinSteel to produce machine codes for the FICEP Angle Line.
The material is punched and sheared to length by the equipment before benig shaped in a highly skilled labour intensive process to produce the 550 nodes, each consisting of up to 27 angles, that meet to form locating points around the structure. These are to be joined together with longer angles bolted and welded in position. In total there will be 4,400 holes punched in the angle profiles and the total weight of the structure will be 60 tonnes. The statue is scheduled to take 18 months to complete.
hadfabltd.co.uk
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