BOICEVILLE, N.Y.

IN a couple of months, when the last of the mountain snow melts away, Steve Heller, an industrial sculptor, furniture maker and winner of the second Collectible Car of the Year contest on nytimes.com, will begin work on his one big project of the year.

In the past, he has fabricated a 23-foot-high dinosaur out of tire chains and wrenches; made a rocket ship out of the barrel mixer of a cement truck, the side panels of an old Buick and treads from a bulldozer; built a soapbox derby car that resembles a Top Fuel dragster and spits fire; and customized a 1959 Cadillac hot rod with double-layered fenders and painted-on flames, which pulls a smile out of Mr. Heller’s bearded face when he mentions it.

“Cadillac guys don’t like flames,” he said.

Here in the northern Catskills, a good two hours north of New York City, there are only “seven good months” of outdoor working weather, said Mr. Heller, who owns Fabulous Furniture on Route 28. In a workshop several paces behind the store, Mr. Heller, 63, creates one-of-a-kind furniture out of wood that he logs, transports, mills, cuts and finishes himself. He also creates sculptures out of found metal, predominantly based on three themes: farm animals, totem poles and rocket ships, which are built out of the headlamps and taillights of cars from the 1950s and ’60s. It is these mechanical wonders, scattered about the premises, that make the storefront so remarkable on the rural highway.

But once a year, Mr. Heller embarks on something much grander, though the project is often not clear to him until he begins — a system he has come to trust.