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When he did the mount at Harvard with Arnie Lewis and Dr. Romer, he used a full range of his metal working abilities. He had worked less than 2 years at Harvard but was already figuring how to use his experience and skill, along with his artistic bent, to produce a mount that was beautiful. In this instance the beauty came from the fact that the metal work was concealed.
 
In the left image, you can see various metal structures that he created from scratch. The lab had a metal lathe - whether it was there before he arrived or not, I do not know. He used it to create threaded elements that would hold several long members securely togther. The overhead chain hoist is hidden benind the near sided A-frame, but you can see the chain hanging down to the floor. That type of hoist was standard in a machine shop to handle heavy metal pieces.
It is difficult to make out the entire structure that he created out of what appears to be 6 or 8 inch I-beam. It is the long black piece that sits above the skull. The very left end of the structure has been welded to a steel plate that is bolted into a large beam in the ceiling, while the far end also welded to a 2-foot long steel plate which is also bolted to the wall. You can see, just behind the right A-frame that there is a black I-beam extending to the right. That was another 6-foot length that was welded to the steel plate and provided with a second steel plate at the right end of the beam, which was then bolted to the wall. Those three steel plates, through the I-beams were the primary weight-bearing points for the skull.
In the left photo above, you can see 6-8 steel rods that are welded to the long I-beam. The lower end is welded to the steel armature that was created specifically for the skull, and buried inside of it. The next image shows 7 steel bars that were welded
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to the I-beams, and to the back side of the skull. In addition to these 7 membesr, another set was welded to the back side of the skull, and down to an I-beam that he secured diagnoally on the floor specifically to receive those supports.
The net result of all of this steel work was that it made it possible for the skull to appear to be free-hanging - after the screen was placed and stuccoed - also by dad.
The interesting thing about this first mount with concealed steel is that most of the supporting steel was external to the skeleton. All of the succeeding skeletongs that he mounted concealed the steel inside the bones.
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