01x03 - Lost in the Sauce

[bunniefuu]

[buzzing]

[upbeat music playing]

[Rae] So walking into the room,

I see razor blades, I see forks,
knives, spoons, and horseshoes.

I don't know what we're doing.

Number two rule in Texas,
we don't build horseshoe art.

If I do, I'll be building
boot racks for everybody.

[Jo Koy] Welcome, welders.

Two talented welders
have gone home and five of you remain.

You've already created beautiful avatars,

smoking barbecues,

and now you're going to make

moving metal mobiles.

A type of build that put many of
the world's best metal artists on the map,

a mobile is a decorative
suspended structure.

This challenge is going to put
your engineering skills to the test

by incorporating movement and math
with balance and physics

into your artistic vision.

We're not talking
about your baby's mobile.

For this challenge,
we want you to go big or go home.

Is it "mob-eels" or "mob-uls"?

-[producer] I think mobiles.
-I think mobiles too.

-I own two mobiles. I call them mobiles.
-[producer] "Mob-uls"?

Mo' dolla's, mo' bills.

[buzzing]

We're gonna give you a 40-pound piece
of 4 x 8 sheet metal,

and you better use every single bit of it.

No waste.

Four-foot by eight-foot
must be incorporated into your mobiles,

so these need to be big,
and they need to be rad.

[Jo Koy] And guess what?

In this challenge,
we want you to take very small items,

like horseshoes, razor blades,

and knives and forks,

and combine all of those materials
with your artistic vision and create

a massive metal masterpiece.

Also, you'll be given
a motor to work with,

either a top motor

or a bottom motor.

And each one will create
a different sense of movement.

As always, we want you to create
a unique piece that tells a story.

You're gonna have three hours to do it.

What?

[laughing]

-You really thought three?
-Yeah.

I'm messing with you. It's 12 hours,
and I wanted a better response.

Twelve hours starts now. Go.

[vibrant music playing]

[Jo Koy] For this challenge, we've asked
our welders to create a mobile.

The structure needs to be large in scale,

use all 40 pounds of scrap metal,

create a kinetic motion with a motor,

include razors,
horseshoes, and silverware.

They'll have 12 hours for this build.

[whirring]

Uh, I think the overall design
I'm going for

is, I'm kind of thinking...

ocean stingrays.

I caught a stingray, and I imagine
what it was doing under the water

whenever I was deep sea fishing.

So, visually,
I would like you to see a stingray

by getting caught up
in between two worlds,

two currents coming together,

and he's going down to the bottom.

The inspiration
behind this piece is depression.

It's like, all the people
that battle out their demons

and that crossfire of the currents
coming together into this swirl.

My design for this challenge
is going to be a hanging mobile sculpture.

It's going to feature
large, sculpted stingrays

surrounded by a school
of smaller stingrays.

And they're gonna be swirling
downward, like they're stuck in a current.

With the razor blades,
I'm gonna use those as hearts.

The heart of the stingray.

First things first,

I have to build

what everything is going to hang on.

So I grabbed some flat bar,

and I made two different triangles,

but I wanted them to be in weird positions

'cause I want everything
simulating that swirl of going down.

I've never ever
incorporated motors into my work.

I think Ivan and Lou both,
this is their specialty,

is kinetics and moving parts.

And so I feel like both of them
are gonna come on top.

I'm hoping to just be, like,

under them a little bit. [chuckles]

[Lou] Seventy-four.

While everyone else is spinning,
mine will be moving up and down.

I know that I can't just rely
on something that spins on the shaft.

So I want to differentiate myself
from the other competitors

by doing a vertical motion.

-Hey, guys. How's it going?
-Hey, Lou. What's going on?

I noticed that we have a motor
that's turning in a horizontal plane.

So I'm gonna try to turn it
into a vertical motion.

Basically, my plan
is to have a spinning motor,

my suspension template,

and then a bunch
of small bird-like sculptures

at the end of a welding wire
that I'm going to use to hang them.

And as the motor turns,

all of my little birds
are gonna be going up and down.

This is engineering, this is...

Well, Ivan is
an incredibly talented kinetic sculptor.

I've been studying not only him
but other artists out there.

This is the next phase of me learning.

-You want to smoke him on this one?
-[Lou] Yeah, cook him.

-I love it, man. I love your excitement.
-Thank you.

Let's see if I can get it done.

All of these items are foreign to me

because I never usually use
recycled material

or, you know, repurposed stuff.

I usually start with fresh, clean sheets
of mild steel or aluminum or stainless.

I mean, I'm kind of nervous about
the aesthetic components of the sculpture.

We have 12 hours,
and I'm gonna go with an ocean theme.

My plan is to make
a bunch of ocean creatures,

like an orca whale, turtle,
and maybe a seahorse, octopus,

few different things, all swimming around
with a bunch of seagrass.

I wanna also get things to move up
and down as they spin around in a circle.

That's the biggest challenge,

I gotta start with the rigging,
the armature, the framework,

make sure I can get that part of it down.

I don't know how I'm gonna do this.

[chuckling]

So to try to create the movement
I wanna have in this piece,

I have to have two things:
a piece that stands still

and that spinning piece.

On that piece standing still,
a ring is gonna run up and down.

So I had to put
all those hills and valleys in it,

and, to do that,
really the easiest way I could think of

was just grab it
and try and force it into place.

So I'll just get the ring welded
on the top of the thing.

I might gotta flick it on
and see what it does.

It's working! A little bit, yeah.

[Jo Koy] You don't think
you're going too big on this one?

-Oh, no, I definitely am, yes.
-[laughs] All right, good.

As usual, I've got a very ambitious idea,

and it's gonna bite me in the a*s,
but I wanna do it, so I have to.

[chuckles]

[Jo Koy] What strengths
are most important for this?

The welders
that have experience doing kinetic art

will definitely have just an amazing
amount of advantage in this challenge.

I honestly really see Ivan and Thomas

totally crushing this build.

But when we're looking
at the overall challenge here on this one,

it looks like Ivan
challenged himself the most with this.

Having to incorporate
these other materials,

hopefully, he can finish in time.

[David] You have to know
exactly what these pieces are

when it's twisting around.

They have to look
at the different objects.

And Stephanie and I are gonna see
if they didn't weld it right,

if they didn't polish right.

We're gonna be looking
for that craftsmanship, Jo.

This could come into be a little bit
of a problem with somebody like Frank.

[Frank] I'm outside my comfort zone.

I've never built a mobile before.

I guess that's how you say it, mobile.

It's spelled just like
Mobile, Alabama, which is where I'm from.

It's ironic.

For my design this week, I think
I want to make a large African mask.

It's gonna be made from sheet metal

with features that will be decorated
with the silverware.

There are a lot of mobiles that are
just a flat piece of plate hanging.

How boring is that?

I'm better... I can do better than that.

Up front, I'm not gonna worry
about the, you know, movement.

I'm gonna try to get my sculptures done.

First thing I do
is cut my couple pieces of metal

that will form the shape of the mask.

Don't know where I'm going,
I just gotta keep plugging away,

let it take its course.

Looking at the material pile
that we had there,

I was cool
with those forks and knives and spoons.

I can see potential with them.
I can see potential with a horseshoe.

The razor blades I don't get at all.

I mean, they're so, so thin and fragile.
It's quite a challenge.

I'm thinking, "What am I gonna do?"

[buzzing]

[Tom] I'm choosing to do a carousel
because I've always liked the fair.

It just seems like something fun.

For my mobile,
I'm gonna create a large carousel

with a canopy and metal swings
hanging from it.

It's gonna be tricky 'cause
I don't normally build stuff this big.

Plus with the spinning motion,
you have to think of...

For me, I have to think of the structure
being safe to spin and not wobble.

There's a lot of details
that'll show when it starts spinning.

I already feel at a disadvantage
because I don't build large things,

and I don't build things to move.

I guess priority number one
is to build a frame,

so I know it's sturdy
and will handle moving.

[cheering]

Four feet will be good.

To make the canopy,

I made two giant octagons

out of half inch tubing.

Then I placed them on top of the structure

with angled steel to hold it in place.

So I made my carousel large enough

to hopefully consume most
of that 4 x 8 sheet of steel.

You wanna help me win $50,000?

Right now I'm working on
putting the skin on the outside of it.

[trilling]

I'm lucky I did my measurements right.
All the pieces are the same.

I wanted my carousel to be large,
big in presence,

and hopefully using
everything they asked for.

I can't have gaps

'cause I know Stephanie's gonna be
like, "I can see light through that."

[blows raspberry] So...

[buzzing]

[upbeat music playing]

[whirring]

What do you wanna see?

Do you wanna actually see the horseshoes,

and a spoon, and a fork
and a razor in the project,

or just use the metals from these?

I don't. I want them to go really,
really out there with their creativity.

I want them to do something
that nobody would think is possible

with these three materials.

[Stephanie]
Those razor blades are stainless steel,

so they can use this
to add texture to their stuff.

They can use it
to add shine and dimension,

which would be
a cool way to do it instead of

just traditional scales on a fish.
They could be all razor blades.

It's in the eyes of the beholder
when it comes to creating their pieces.

Yeah.

[Lou] I have experience

with hanging sculptures
from the ceiling using a lot of wire,

and I'm noticing that those
horseshoes have holes in them.

All I got to do is basically make a frame,

throw a bunch of the horseshoes in
and weld it all together.

Now I'm gonna attach an arm
that spins in a circle that has a hub

that free-spins.

That hub will have a lot of holes in it.

Through the horseshoe, I start
individually hanging sculptures off of it.

And as the motor turns, that hub spins.

All of my little birds
are gonna be going up and down.

Oh uh.

Mm. I see a problem.

Where's our motion?

It's gonna wear in. It's gonna wear in.

I am having problems with my mechanism.

There's always pitfalls
that come out of nowhere and surprise me.

I'm gonna load this with about,
maybe 100 pounds of weight.

I'm susceptible to friction
stopping the rotation of this thing.

-[Jo Koy] I have no idea what Lou's doing.
-He's going way into contemporary art.

[David] He's going way outside of the box.

[Stephanie]
It's a little contemporary for my taste.

I'm gonna be definitely looking
for those features of fabrication

and the overall technical skill sets
that it took to create this.

I see Tom doing
a very fabrication-based mobile,

but he's got a lot of pieces.

Hopefully, what he's doing, he can finish.

[Tom] Just need one more.

So, To use the horseshoes,

I'm incorporating them
into a deco-art type of park

for the top of the canopy.

That's different.

I'm probably
just gonna use the silverware,

the knives, the forks,
the spoons, as handles for the seats.

To make the seats, I draw a 8 x 8 square,

get a centerline. I bend it.

And then use those handles off the spoons

as handles on the seats.

Ahh!

This m*therf*cker.

My motor spins so slow.

It's like
a really disappointing fireworks display.

I'm not gonna get
the centrifugal effect with the seats.

[sighs]

Sad. It's just really sad.

I'm trying to really figure out
a way to create the illusion of movement.

The only way to fix this
is to cut it off and re-weld at an angle.

I actually have to put the seats

in the place
of where they would be spinning.

I'm still kind of unconfident about myself

because it's slow,
and it just goes in a circle.

I don't know.

[Rae] There's two different variations
of stingrays on this.

It's gonna be the school of stingray,

which is just an illusion
that there's a bunch of them.

Then the actual sculpture stingray.

I'm sculpting the stingrays right now.

It's pretty thin sheet metal,

so I just sculpted
everything with my hands.

There are gonna be two pieces of plate
sandwiching everything in

'cause I didn't want the spoons
and the knife to show underneath.

I'm using knives and spoons

as the little fins
on the back of the stingray.

The razor blade in the chest,

all the details even down to their face.

And then, of course, the horseshoes!

Those went
to just holding things together.

The structure
of her sculpture looks kind of small.

-I hope she can use that full sheet.
-I hope.

All right.

I don't know what I'm doing,

but I'm doing it right now.

I... I don't know what to do.

I laid this mask on the table.

So this is the shape of it, you know?

It's just flat.

It needs shape, you know,

so I thought maybe
I'll just cut these geometrical shapes.

So I started that,
and it started coming up.

I got the forehead and all done,

and then I got a couple horseshoes
for the eye socket.

We gotta figure out a nose here.

It didn't really sink in

that that was gonna be time-consuming.

Frank!

-You're making a different mask now.
-No, it's the same one.

We're almost, what,

-getting close to halfway through?
-Yep.

-Okay.
-[Frank] I'm way behind.

Right now, I'm thinking,
"I'm not gonna be able to do this."

I'm down in the dumps, man.

I'm... I'm low as you can go.

I could just
melt into the floor and disappear.

[whirring]

[Ivan] Got the armature,
the rigging, everything ready.

Starting to work on
making these creatures.

I'm building a orca, k*ller whale.

First thing I do is the skeleton
of the fish, fish bone.

I'm gonna slice up
a tube for the structure.

Then I'll run a rod through the tubes
for the hinges

to get it to bend and move
the way I need it to.

I got a long way to go
and not a lot of time.

Once I pick it up from the middle,
the ends are gonna flop down.

If I can balance this out...

So that's the tricky part.

So I had levers with weights on them
to balance this out.

When parts are moving up and down,

these will stay
in the same position they're in.

It will be balanced.

For the weights,
the horseshoes came in very handy

'cause they're a heavy piece of steel.
I needed to use them anyways.

I'm gonna try to balance that out
so it shouldn't have much weight on it.

One of the nice things
about the teeter-totter effect,

if I put one on either end,
as one's down, the other will be up.

So they balance out.

Then I gotta start adding on sheet metal
to make it look like an orca

instead of just a weird random frame.

[David] Much like Ivan's avatar,

all we see is
just a skeletal, like, thing.

We don't wanna just
be focused on the structure

and not so much those artistic elements.

When we said, "You have to use
that entire piece of sheet metal,"

is that gonna determine
who wins and loses?

It will.
Points will be completely taken off.

-They just have to fill in space.
-[Jo Koy] Yeah.

I have a lot
of sheet metal work I have to do.

I keep adding pieces
until the time runs out

and do the best I can with what I have.

I'm a little bit concerned about
what Frank's got going on back there.

Every other competitor right now

has some type of structure
to their mobiles,

and Frank still only has just that mask,

and that's not complete yet.

Yeah. I haven't seen anything over there.

I'm not sure what he's got going on.

-He's a little lost in the sauce.
-[Jo Koy] Yeah.

[Lou]
I'm working on small bird-like sculptures

at the end of a welding wire
that I'm gonna use to hang them.

So I went ahead and cut 72 8 x 8 squares.

That's the only way
I'm gonna consume this sheet.

Drilled a hole right in the middle,

anticipating that drilling a hole
right in the middle, after fold it

would give me a nice balance point.

So these things
would kind of hang decently level.

The only way
you're gonna win this competition

is being really good at time management.

Although I'm making a bunch of parts,

I can move through things
and have an assembly line.

Cut, fold,

drill, hang.

Cut, fold,

drill, hang,

and just move on, quickly as possible.

So originally,
I thought that the razor blades

were kind of a crappy material to use.

They're super thin.
They're obviously dangerous.

I wasn't gonna try to weld any of them,

so I decided
to just put them at the end of the cable

and use them as a stopper.

And failure.

-Oh, no.
-Oh, sh*t.

Those things
have no structural, kind of, integrity,

so after a little bit, one just fell off.

We gotta figure that out real fast.

-That's not good.
-Hopefully, he can fix it in time.

I was hoping to have
a whole menagerie of animals,

but I have two hours left,

and I still need to build my turtle
to balance the orca whale.

For how much time I have
and for where I'm at,

it's become very apparent that I might
just get two animals out of this one.

Hopefully, it impresses the judges.

I had to take the plasma cutter
and torch out different pieces

and put them together and build the top
of the shell as fast as I could.

I'm gonna incorporate razor blades
into the belly part of the shell.

Delicate welding.

Let's see what happens.

[buzzing]

It's so hard to weld
these razor blades together.

They're so super, super thin.

[Ivan] Wow.

Making his belly out of razor blades,
which I didn't think was possible.

I honestly thought I was gonna blow
through those, but they took it.

That goes here.

After I made the stingrays,
I started tacking everything together.

I'm using TIG rod over here.

It's bendable,
and it keeps its form really nicely,

so that way, you see a stingray

getting caught up in between
two currents coming together.

It couldn't be more perfect.

Welders, just a reminder,

you have to use all your sheet metal!

f*ck!

Trying

to cut these

into smaller pieces.

So many f*cking pieces.

Gotta get rid of it, right?
So I just stuck it all at the top.

Oh, yeah.

Got rid of that sheet 15 minutes flat.

It looks like what she did
with a lot of the sheet metal

is she cut it up into smaller pieces,

and she stacked it on these
triangular pieces throughout the center.

-Okay, on the top.
-Yeah.

[David] Looks a little messy.

If she would give negative space,
a little more like Ivan,

it would really fill
that space in a lot better.

[Frank]
I'm cutting a bunch of circles out.

Well, I gotta get this sheet, you know.

It's got to be used up.

So I figured I'd jump from the mask.

Obviously, I can work any kind of metal,
but I don't work sheet metal.

I like aluminum
because it really makes me a lot faster,

but time's ticking,
and I don't know what to do.

I'm feeling all these emotions.

Part of me wants to go home,
but I'm not a quitter.

I took my frustrations out
on that piece of plate.

I beat it on my stump,
putting all these dents in it.

My arm was about to fall off,
and I'm like,

"This is chaotic. This is crazy."

Chaos ain't pretty. Chaos is ugly,

but maybe if I can express
this chaotic feeling

in visual form,

maybe I got a direction to go in now.

I'm cutting through the chaos.

So now it's time to push.

I've got these pieces,

and I'm gonna start at the top,

and I'm gonna put these pieces on

and create this sphere.

Frank's using all of the sheet metal.

Let's hope he finds
an interesting and creative way

of molding that into a piece of art.

You never know with Frank.

[Frank] Sometimes you gotta regroup.

And I still have to mount
the mask to the sculpture,

so time is a challenge.

[buzzing]

One hour left!

Cutting metal!

Cut that metal, Ivan!

Here comes Ivan again!

[Ivan] I have one hour left to finish,

and I still have to use up
the majority of the sheet.

The only thing I can think of
is make seagrass.

Go over to the stomp-shear
and chop it into strips as fast as I can

to try and get it there
before time runs out.

Thirty seconds left, you guys!

Five,

four,

three,

two,

one!

All right, time's up! Tools down!

Tools down.

I'm tired. [chuckles]

I can't believe it. I never would've
dreamed I could pull this together.

Final five, at the beginning,

I shared five important words with you.

-"Go big or go home."
-That's right. Go big or go home.

We wanted you to go big,

and we wanted you
to create this massive metal mobile.

Rae, please step up and tell us
about your next piece.

[Rae] This piece represents depression.

You kind of feel like
you have nowhere to go but down.

There's razor blades in every single
one of these to represent

them cutting
all the people out of their life

when you're
in a downward spiral of depression.

[David] Okay.

Rae, you had so much material,
but you went small on the stingrays.

I kind of wanted to keep that tight,

true to a school of stingrays.

It's just all feeling here.
I really appreciate that.

-[David] It's like a dreamscape.
-Yeah.

[Jo Koy] Ivan, you're up.

[Ivan] What popped into my mind
was a baby mobile above a crib,

and I thought,
"Do that but with a sculpture."

Instead of hanging above a crib,
it's something that people come and see.

[David] That's great.

The only thing I want to know is,

why did you make
the sea turtle so far off?

That's part of that balance.

All that weight of that whale
is pulling him down.

The weight of the turtle is specific

to the distance
of the armature to the lever

to actually be able to do that.

It's what Archimedes said,

"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum
to set it on, I'll move the world."

Damn with that answer, man, My God.

You should have just said,
"Steph, it didn't wanna get eaten."

This whale over here? I mean... [laughs]

[laughing]

-[Stephanie] Great job, Ivan.
-[Ivan] Thank you. Appreciate it.

Frank, tell us about your build.

[Frank] I never did a mobile before.

So, I thought about what Jo said,
"Go big or go home,"

and then I'm thinking,
"I'm gonna do this really cool mask."

I thought about they said they had some...

band saw blades, you know?

And then I thought...

I said, "Man, that's gonna be perfect,"
because that's...

To me, that's me cutting
through all this chaos, you know?

It's like I got all this chaos,

I'm gonna strap all this stuff,
cut through this chaos

and get through this.

That's great symbolism.

And so through the chaos,
I've created this piece of art.

[David]
Look at all this going on here, Steph.

-[Stephanie] Did you use an engraver?
-[Frank] Yeah, a little burn too.

-[David] And the hammer work right here.
-Yeah, that's frustration.

That's perfect.
That's what art is all about.

[Stephanie] I think overall,
this face... It's just wicked.

I think that you did a good job
expressing your style and who you are.

[David] Totally.

But, unfortunately, your piece
lacked that real feeling of motion.

-Thank you.
-Thanks, Frank.

Thank you.

All right, Tom, you're up next.

[Tom] Well, my inspiration
and desperation to create this

came from the state fair.

I did use every bit of metal.

I used the spoon handles like light bulbs.

[David] Totally.

Then the razor blades.

Because I'm a dad, sharp objects
need to be out of the way of children,

so I riveted eight razor blades
at the highest point.

-[Jo Koy] You are crazy.
-To keep it safe.

-I'm a dad, safety first.
-You're amazing.

[laughing]

So far, a lot of the horseshoes
on the other pieces have been hidden.

So I appreciate that you'd use those
as a main focal point of your piece.

I love that.

Why didn't you make
the length of the chairs

-longer to match?
-Thinking the same thing.

When you go to these,

you get on at an, obviously, low level,
but it adjusts and kicks up.

So my idea was to go
at the dynamic mode of it,

where you get picked up.

You have to be clear
of the fence and other people.

-[David] Thank you.
-[Stephanie] Thank you.

-Thank you.
-Appreciate it.

Lou, you're up, man.

[Lou] I've always been really fascinated

to see how birds fly in a flock

and their relationship,
how the form changes in the air.

[David] Okay, very interesting.

I felt that allowing the sculpture
to rotate was predictable,

and so I needed to find a way
to turn that rotational motion

into vertical motion.

[Stephanie] Why didn't you take any time
to actually weld the forks on there

or maybe the razor blades?

Sure. Some of the shapes
weren't perfectly level,

so what I came up with

was the idea of using the forks

as little balancing weights.

[David] Only the top part is welded,
right?

[Lou] Absolutely.

I knew I was gonna have a lot of parts.
I didn't want them to be labor-intensive,

but I wanted to represent something
that'd be aesthetically pleasing.

Honestly speaking, I'm impressed.

I'm impressed that you didn't do
just a whole bunch of welds on it,

and you just kind of let it...

be free.

You figured out other ways

of making the sculpture happen
without having to weld every piece,

-which was very impressive.
-I appreciate it.

-[Stephanie] Thank you, Lou.
-[Lou] Thank you.

[Jo Koy] Welders,

now it comes down to the judges

to find out who made the best piece

and who made the worst piece.

[suspenseful music playing]

Ivan, Tom,

neither of you created our favorite
or least favorite mobiles.

You may step back.

One of you created a mobile

that was big and bold in design,

and the small and big materials
were incorporated in a unique way.

And that mobile belongs to...

Lou. Congratulations!

Yes!

-[Frank] Good job.
-Thank you.

[David] Lou, you crushed it.

Amazing how you were able to

find that motion going around

and go up and down.

[Stephanie] You found a way to create
a beautifully fabricated piece of art

with using minimal welding.

And, as a fabricator,
I truly appreciated that.

You had the clearest vision
from the start,

and you got it done. Congratulations.

Thank you.

Frank, Rae,

one of you created a mobile
that just didn't deliver.

Frank, your piece was great

when it came to the mask

and how rad you made
each of those features within that piece,

but unfortunately lacked
that real feeling of motion.

Rae, your piece had life and movement,

but unfortunately it lacked some details.

It was very flat to me.

You're both
unbelievably talented and gifted,

but, in the end,

one person has to go home.

And that person is...

Frank.

-[Stephanie] Great job. Thank you.
-Uncle Frank!

-Uncle Frank!
-Hey, man.

I got no regrets,
and I'm proud of what I created,

and I know Blake,
he's proud of me, and what I'm doing.

Out of everything,

if I could help one person

that has suffered a loss of a child,

to see that,
yeah, there is life after that,

it'd mean a lot to me.

Welders, congratulations,
you made it to the final four. Let's go!

If that isn't music to your ears,

just wait and see
what's in store for you on the next build.

All right, back to the workshop!
No rest for the weary!

Go! Get out of here!

[upbeat music playing]