This is the “Sundry Other Avocations” part of the blog you’ve heard tell about.
In addition to the cheap little woodworking bench and the long mechanic’s bench I have in the shop, I also have a welding table I built from 1/4″ plate steel and some 1-1/2″ angle iron given to me by a friend.
The Bronze Oak Leaf isn’t just your run-of-the-mill woodworking shop. It’s also your run-of-the-mill metalworking shop. I’m pretty well tooled-up for just about anything that strikes my fancy at any given time.
I don’t weld as much as I used to, but I can still make some sparks fly when I have to. And today, I had to.
My lovely sister (for those of you interested in real art, click on either link) asked me over a year ago to build an industrial-style table resembling a cart from an old warehouse. I promised, but never delivered. Life has a way of intruding on commitments.
Anyway, I bought the steel some weeks ago and have been just waiting for the right time. You see, it isn’t just that I need to find the time to do some things, I also have to have the bug.
I was in the shop early this morning, trying to figure out what to do with the rotted-out exhaust system on my beater work car. I finally decided to spend the money and replace the whole kit-and-kaboodle. It was a miserable couple hours (and expensive), but it put me in the mood to do some steel work. What the heck, I was already dirty.
As you can see here, I notched the side then heated and bent the other side to make a smoother and more visually pleasing leg. I wish I had taken some pics of my patterns. I made scaled patterns to help me figure out the angles to cut for the bent legs.
I welded the inside of the legs before flipping them over and welding the “show” side. I needed some warm-up; it’s been awhile.
Things tend to creep with the heating and cooling that comes with welding, so I clamp securely to keep things straight.
This is what it looks like before the wood. Not too shabby, all thing considered. I didn’t have to grind off and re-weld anything, so I was happy.
From my vast rough lumber collection, my sister chose some rough-cut cherry that I bought from a guy last year. It was cut on a circular sawmill and she liked the look. However, trying to make rough-cut lumber behave like surfaced lumber is no small task. I can’t flatten it, so I have to figure out how to deal with the minor cupping and warping that comes with rough-cut.
I’ll hopefully be finishing this some time this week. I’ll be posting more pics as I figure out how the heck I’m going to pull this off.
