Puget Dude’s creations and fabrications (Random project thread.)

[don long]

Scott
You have blown me away with that sweet bench cabinet.
I just stumbled onto your thread tonight. You can tell by the time I'm posting that I have been here for a while.
I'll be checking in more often now.

Don

 

[Bears Fan]

Official North Florida Safety School Honor Society footwear

.

Does this actually count as a Florida Safety Shoe, if there was no blood

 

[Toolfool]

Missed a step coming down a ladder. Landed on my left heel on concrete. Hairline fracture and a nasty bone bruise.

You fragile old guys need to be more careful.

 

[drivesitfar]

I’m not sure how I kept missing your thread but it looks like you’ve been plenty busy.

Sorry you hurt yourself on the ladder. Lately just going up and down ladders has me pretty sore the next day.

Heal fast!!

 

[PugetDude]

I have always subscribed to the old adage that if you fall off a horse, you need to climb right back on… my wife was in strong disagreement. She took this picture to show my sister what an idiot brother she has...

How do birds peck their way through concrete succo over metal lath? Spent the summer at the cabin up north, came home to find two half-dollar size holes at the stucco/ceiling corner- lucklily not in the wood- stucco is easier to patch.

 

[Miss the Pontiacs]

Dryer tops, locker doors, cookie sheets plus of course some imagination/ingenuity and the result is amazingly. Now get the hell off that ladder and let your wife find you a beverage.

 

[rattle_snake]

Hope foot heals up quickly.
Last time a had one of those safety shoes I put so many hard miles on it that it fell apart. Wife was not amused.

 

[PugetDude]

I was out in the desert doing a pre-construction conference with our community architect on a new build this AM.
It's hard to get all the dust and desert debris off that boot material.

 

[RivennHewn]

Too easy to get burrs with those open toe shoes.

High price to pay for fashion!

 

[shortykorte]

Must be one of those Red Hammer Stucco Peckers. I heard they're popular out west.

 

[PugetDude]

Time for another project post.

This one is a 30” sheet metal brake. (Actual width between the hinges is 30-3/8”)
Had a piece of 3” channel in my steel stash so I used it for the fixed frame and the movable bending beam. Hold down is 2” x 2” x 1/4” angle. Had to machine a clearance slot for the hinges- probably could have just used an angle grinder but elected for milling machine practice instead.







Hinges are fabricated from 1/2” pipe S80 pipe w/ 5/8” diameter cold rolled hinge pins. Drilled and reamed the pipe for a wobble-free fit.



There are a lot of simple DIY brakes on YouTube; one thing I wanted to do differently on this one was to make the hold down adjustable for gauge so I could use it for bending thicker aluminum.

Fabricated simple mounting pads out of 2 x 2 x 1/4" square tubing and 1/2" top plates, welded to the angle. Slotted the 1/2” hold down bolt holes about 1/4” and used a simple adjustment knob threaded into a tapped hole in piece of split heavy wall rectangular tubing welded to the stationary frame. The knob moves the hold down angle and keeps it from moving away from the bend line. It doesn’t need a lot of adjustment but it does make a difference when bending thicker aluminum. I’ve bent up to 1/8” with it (not full width) Made a couple of simple knurled locking nuts because I wanted to try a knurling tool I found in the box of tooling that came with the atlas lathe. Didn't have the height right, ended up with a single knurl- but it works just fine. The working edge of the hold down angle was ground to about 60 degrees to give a crisp contact surface. It was quicker to do it with an angle grinder than to set it up in the mill.



Added an adjustable top brace to pre-load the top angle to prevent camber. This was just a piece of scrap 1/2” rebar, a little chunk of 1/2” pipe and a bolt.



Top is pretty well done, time for the frame..,

 

[PugetDude]

The base frame was constructed out of 1-1/2" square, 1-1/2" x 3" and 1"x2" rectangular tube, I wanted it to be easily movable so I put a set of 8”solid tire wheels on it. Problem with a movable brake is trying to keep it from moving while bending.
The solution was a drop-down platform that I can step on while bending; it folds up when not in use. I used 1/4" plate for the sides and four scrap pieces of 1/2' x 1-1/2" rectangular ornamental iron tubing for the platform.



This makes it portable so it doesn’t need to be anchored in one place. Space is at a premium in my shop; this lets me park it up on the narrow raised section of the floor next to the pump cabinet and move it out when I need to use it.



Added a couple of removable handles for bending- these are just some 3/4" S40 pipe I had in my steel pile, with bike handgrips I found on Amazon Warehouse Deals. Added a couple of short pieces of tubing so I could store them out of the way when I’m not using it. Clevis pins to secure them in place during use.





Primed and painted with Rustoleum Hammered Silver.

Haven’t used it a lot but it’s worked well for the smaller sheet metal projects I typically do.

 

[Bigblue&Goldie]

That turned out awesome, nice job!

 

[RivennHewn]

You take PayPal or Venmo?

 

[zmotorsports]

That turned our freakin' AWESOME Scott.

 

[GreenIron]

Great work on the brake.

 

[Toolfool]

You take PayPal or Venmo?

Put me on that list.

 

[PugetDude]

You take PayPal or Venmo?

What's PayPal?

 

[Toolfool]

What's PayPal?

I have cash.

 

[RivennHewn]

What's PayPal?

Never mind. I’ve canceled them both.

 

[PugetDude]

Thought I’d post an update on the copper house numbers. Got impatient waiting for them to age out naturally so I hit them with a coat of JAX Instant Patina. Really happy with the result; they look like 100 year old copper now.

 

[Toolfool]

Happy Thanksgiving, PD.

 

[PugetDude]

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

 

[PugetDude]

Knocked out a quick little project- more HF bin storage. Wanted to use up the rest of the old pine shelves, plywood, MDF, etc. I have been storing for way too long. Couldn’t go 3- wide on the bins; the lockers are only 48” wide. The half- width bins worked out well to fill up the open space. Interesting to note the AV receiver is almost exactly the same footprint as the HF bins @ 13” x 17”
The only thing I had to buy for this was paint to match the lockers.

 

[zmotorsports]

Looks great Scott. Looks like it was designed for them.

 

[Toolfool]

Gotta love it when symmetry just happens.

 

[PugetDude]

Proof that even the blind squirrel gets an acorn now and then.

 

[Toolfool]

Proof that even the blind squirrel gets an acorn now and then.

NOT in your case. We have lots of proof.

 

[Bears Fan]

Nice job on the metal brake! the copper house numbers look awesome too!

Good job on the Harbor Freight bin storage cabinet, that's one item I do like from Harbor Freight and they are priced right



Here's what I built to hold all my hardware, I still need to finish it with some storage on the right side and a paint job, nothing ever moves too fast in DaBarn, but I do manage to be working on 42 different projects at the same time

 

[PugetDude]

Nice job on the metal brake! the copper house numbers look awesome too!

Good job on the Harbor Freight bin storage cabinet, that's one item I do like from Harbor Freight and they are priced right



Here's what I built to hold all my hardware, I still need to finish it with some storage on the right side and a paint job, nothing ever moves too fast in DaBarn, but I do manage to be working on 42 different projects at the same time

Those bins are a lot more useful if you take them out of the plastic packaging…

 

[Bears Fan]

I didn't want to get them dirty! I just haven't figured out how to get the hardware inside of them yet

 

[LXCam]

I didn't want to get them dirty! I just haven't figured out how to get the hardware inside of them yet

/me nudges BF............seal a meal

 

[zmotorsports]

Merry Christmas to you and your family Scott.

 

[Bears Fan]

Scott, I hope you and your family have a very Merry Christmas

 

[Toolfool]

Merry Christmas Scott.

 

[PugetDude]

Finished up a Christmas present for my buddy Ron; my wife and I have celebrated Christmas together with him for almost 2 decades. We’ve done a lot of projects together, he does a lot of welding and fabrication.

This one started out as a chunk of 6” x6” x 1/2” wall square tube, that I picked up in a scrapyard, someone had torched off a piece of plate that had been welded on to it at some point.



(Note the heavy welded angle brace in the foreground-6" x6" x 1/2" angle with 1/2" gussets ….couldn't just leave it laying there. It's going to show up in this thread in the future…)

When I was pulling the square tube out of the truck I “saw” a welding helmet. in it… so I decided to try my hand at a welded sculpture. I roughed out the shape with a 7” angle grinder and then cut out the top, neck and shoulder pieces of 3/16"”plate. The base is a piece of heavy 8” channel that I picked up with the square tube scrap, boxed the top and ends with 1/4" plate.

Took quite a bit of welding, blending with 40/80/120 grit flap discs to get it all smoothed out. Finished up with a 4-1/2" scotchbrite disc. Left it raw, he can clear coat it or just let it weather.



It’s heavy, weighs about 65#. Fun project.

 

[RivennHewn]

In

Finished up a Christmas present for my buddy Ron; my wife and I have celebrated Christmas together with him for almost 2 decades. We’ve done a lot of projects together, he does a lot of welding and fabrication.

This one started out as a chunk of 6” x6” x 1/2” wall square tube, that I picked up in a scrapyard, someone had torched off a piece of plate that had been welded on to it at some point.



(Note the heavy welded angle brace in the foreground…. That’s going to show up here in the future…)

When I was pulling it out of the truck I “saw” a welding helmet. in it… so I decided to try my hand at a welded sculpture. I roughed out the shape with a 7” angle grinder and then started cutting out the top and base out of 1/4” scrap. The base is a piece of heavy 8” channel that I picked up with the square tube scrap.

Took quite a bit of welding, blending with 40/80/120 grit flap discs to get it all smoothed out. Finished up with a scotchbrite disc. Left it raw, he can clear coat it or just let it weather.



It’s heavy, weighs about 65#. Fun project.

Hope you were wearing your steel toed Crocs.

Happy Christmas!

 

[Bears Fan]

That piece of 6" x 6" angle iron caught my eye too! that would make one cool, heavy ***, industrial looking shelf

Maybe add some big rivets in those holes?

 

[PugetDude]

An unexpected project dropped in my lap… neighbor dropped this off… will post project pics when I get a chance to get on this; working on something else right now.

 

[PugetDude]

Redneck stock support- cutting 2” x4” rectangular tubing with my chopsaw.