Modern stainless steel geometric sculpture featuring balanced cubes on pillars in a garden

Product Guide

How a Stainless Steel Water Drop or Fountain Sculpture Works

How a watertight sculpture is built, where the flow tube runs, and what your water feature contractor needs from us.

A Water Piece Is Two Things at Once

A fountain sculpture is a plumbing component and an artwork in the same object. If the water path is added after the form is built, it shows: tubes clipped to the outside, awkward penetrations and a seam that leaks the first time the basin is filled. We build the water path into the form instead.

See Steel Sphere Water Fountain

Watertight Construction

Fountain spheres are made watertight so they can float on a pond or hold water without leaking at the seam. That means the weld is not just ground for looks, it has to be sound all the way round. A funnel shaped hole is formed at the top and a matching hole at the bottom to take the flow tube, both made during fabrication rather than cut later.

Drop Ripple and Wave Forms

Beyond spheres, the same approach produces water drop, water ripple and water wave pieces. These are hand formed rather than pressed, and their appeal is that the mirror surface repeats the movement of the water underneath. The forms are large, hollow and lighter than they look, which matters when a piece has to be lifted into an existing basin.

Polished stainless steel teardrop sculptures clustered in a landscaped garden with planters, water feature and brick buildings behind — Water drop forms at the head of a planted water feature.

See Large Stainless Steel Mirror Water Drop Sculpture

What Your Contractor Needs from Us

We do not supply pumps or tanks. What we do supply is the internal geometry, the hole positions and the piece dimensions, so your water feature contractor can size the pump, the pipework and the tank. For large pieces this information goes out on shop drawings before production.

Grade Choice Around Water

Water features are a chloride environment. Pool chemistry, hard water and treatment chemicals all attack the passive layer, so AISI 316 is the usual specification for anything permanently in or over water. It costs more than 304 and it is the right decision in almost every fountain application.

Living with a Water Feature

Hard water leaves deposits on any polished surface, so a mirror finish in a fountain will need regular washing with clean water and a soft cloth to stay bright. Avoid chloride based cleaners entirely; they will do more damage than the fountain water ever does.