Both the "old barn" and the rocking horse were made for Christmas gifts. The barn's frame was made from square steel rods, and welded together. The bare metal was shot with etching primer before the paint went on. The siding and roofing were made out of aluminum sheets. Each slat and roof tile were cut out individually and glued on to the structure. The intent was to build this barn to look like it had aged and faded - like it was built it the 40's or so. I could've sworn I took a picture of the thing was it was all done, but I can't seem to locate it. Rats. I painted the sides brown and the roof a dull red/rust color. I then sanded the entire exterior here and there to create the look of age and faded paint. The sides had an under coating of white so, after sanded, the white came through in some spots taking on the look of old, brown, oxidized wooden boards.
The rocking horse had far less pieces, but it was challenging in it's own way. The horse was made of 100% steel. It was a little tricky to get the rockers engineered correctly. They had to sit perfectly flat, rock perfectly flat, and be nicely balanced from front to back in order to give it nice, even gate. I first tried to bend the steel to create them, but that proved quite difficult if not impossible. I ended up just cutting out the rockers from a pattern I had drawn on paper - then welding them together with two horizontal pieces. The horse's body needed to be twice as thick as the legs to get the proportions correct. Because I didn't want to go the store and find a thicker piece of metal, I used the same steel I used for the rockers and legs. I just had to weld six different pieces together to create a body I was happy with. The legs were welded to the body, the body to the rockers, then the tail to the body. I wanted to completely hide the welds and have the whole thing look as smooth as possible when it was done, so after the whole thing was welded together, I spent a lot of time sanding it down. I used a little 150 grit dremmel sanding disc to started, then worked my way up to 600 grit sanding by hand. The bare metal was covered with etching primer, sanded, painted and ultimately sprayed with clear.