Yesterday I was able to get the patch welded in place and I should now be ready to shape the top. I expect that I will have to make a stake for the comb at some point. The rest of the shaping should more or less just happen with a flat faced hammer over air, over a stake and against the anvil.
As a note, we suspect that the contamination that happened at the top was because of the gas hose having a leaky coupling. This section was the last thing to get welded and probably the hose was moved just before this patch was done, causing it to start leaking. We replaced the hose and made sure it was not leaking before welding the patch on and everything went fine. Check your hoses people.
So, I finally got some time to do the initial rough shaping of the skull. I pushed in the welds, roughly folded out the neck line (so now it can be placed on my head) and roughly pushed in the start of the comb. Everything is quite wonky at this point but that will be taken care of when I refine all shapes.
I realized I am now at a point where I need to make a comb stake so that is my next task. I will then refine the comb and once that is in place I will start finish up the shape of the skull and then make the cap. I hope to have time in the next couple of weeks to get that done.
