Using 40 rectangles and squares from scrap-metal rods, Jacobs created a candelabra headboard for his bedroom.

photos by A.E. Araiza / Arizona Daily Star

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By Gillian Drummond

When construction company owner Mike Jacobs took a welding class at Pima Community College, he only wanted to build a sand rail.

But he caught the bug for metalwork, surprising himself with the pieces he created in class.

Now, turning junk metal into art is one of his passions. He gets the scraps from a friend and metal merchant in Tucson who, he says, would otherwise recycle them.

So far, Jacobs' hobby is confined to his garage and home. The walls and shelves of his East Side house serve as his personal art gallery, and he's reluctant to part with his work. Still, he'd love to show his creations publicly.

"At one point, I want to (take) 25 or 45 pieces and open a gallery for one night, and auction just one of them," the 32-year-old says.

We asked Jacobs to talk us through some of his favorite pieces:

● Candelabra headboard. "This took me about two hours. It's comprised of about 40 rectangles and squares, all scrap-metal rods welded together. When you're building something like that, you build it on the floor. I started in the left-hand corner with one square, and when I thought I had enough, I just kept going and kept building more and more. Then I welded washers in various places and put small candles on it."

● "Fan" lamp. "There are probably 50 rods of metal, and it looked like that when I got it — all bundled together. It creates a lot of different shadows, and I thought, 'How cool would this be if it was a lamp?' The base is hollow. I cut a hole in the middle of it, and the light shines through the base."

● "Japanese sun" screen door. "Being self-employed, I'm not working every day, but I still like to keep busy. This door is what happens when I don't have anything else to do. It was a door that was started for a client of mine, but he despised it. Some people might say it was Southwestern, but when I look at it, I see a Japanese sun. It's made mostly from steel, but I used non-rusting, galvanized metal for the accents. So as the regular steel gets darker and rusts, the sun and mountains, in a way, get   brighter."

● Music sculpture. "One of the things I'm very passionate about is music. I collect vinyl records. I built this piece with my buddy Lance Hargis. The red bit of it is actually a needle from a record player, and the head is a CD. Everything about this piece is representative of music. The arm that connects to the CD is similar to the arm of a record player, and the wire that circles all the way around — made of electrical conduit — is like the wire that's part of a pair of headphones."

● Disc wall sculpture. "I've got to give Lance most of the credit on this one. I pulled all the pieces for it, and he pretty much designed it. It's circles of metal cut with a plasma cutter (they were already cut when we got them), attached to a sheet of aluminum using self-tapping metal screws. I don't want to cut if I don't have to. I don't have a fear of getting hurt; I just feel with as much metal as I have, I shouldn't have to cut a piece. I'll search until I find the piece that's meant to be there."

Junk to Funk