Late January through February are usually the worst part of the year for me. Once the fun of the holiday season wears off, you’re just left with cold and snow. This is the time of year when I always start questioning my life decisions and dream about moving to a more temperate climate. But not this year. This year has been unseasonably warm. The daily highs have been well above freezing for the last few weeks, and we’ve dodged most of the snow systems that have come through. We are still getting the occasional “cold spell” that lasts a few days, but then we pop back into the 40’s soon after (cold spell is in quotes because mid-20’s in February is still downright warm for Iowa). Other than a few spots in the shade, the snow is pretty much gone from my yard. This also means I’ve been enjoying almost daily trips to the shop to tinker around with whatever strikes my fancy. The latest project being a set of planter stands for Wife’s birthday gift.
The inspiration for this project came from a succulent pot/stand I saw awhile back, something like this:
I thought it would be a cool to make a large version of this for either in the house, or on the deck or patio. I did look to see if I could buy them, but nobody seems to be making them. Challenge accepted.
The first step of the project, which ended up being more difficult than expected, was to source a suitable flower pot. Turns out, local inventory is pretty light this time of year at a lot of the local spots. I did consider ordering online, but for a project like this, it’s hard for me to make sure the shape and size were correct without holding the pot in my hand. I eventually found some plastic pots at Earl May. I would have liked to get something a little nicer, but other than the standard orange/brown terracotta pots, not a lot of them have a lip or shape that is conducive to be supported around the top edge – something you don’t really notice until you are looking for it. The plastic pots do have their merits though. They are a standard size, so if we ever wanted a different color, or if one were damaged (foreshadowing) they are easy to find and affordable. Plus, the lip is just large enough to completely cover the support ring.
Pots in hand, the next step was making the ring to support them. Again, I tried looking online for a pre-made ring that would match up to the ½” rod I was going to be using, but no luck. Rolling the material I had on hand wasn’t really an option for a few reasons. First, buying a roller that handles this size material isn’t an option right now. Would I like one, for sure! Do I have room or the money for one right now? Nope. While I could certainly cash in a favor with the guy who runs our rollers at work, the material I was using wasn’t long enough. The offcuts I was using were around 46” long. I’d need material around 58” long to roll a ring large enough. Enter Harbor Freight…
Amazing deals on this Gear Driven Ring Roller at Harbor Freight. Quality tools & low prices.
www.harborfreight.com
The HF ring roller gets mixed reviews, but so do all the other rollers I was able to find online for what appears to be an identical product, just with different brand stickers on them (often sold at a higher price). In reading the reviews, the people who rated it highly seemed to understand that the max material size is listed for a reason and don’t push the roller past its limits. The people who rate it poorly have a point in some regards – it is cheaply made and is a little sloppy. However, I can only imagine that most of negative reviews are from people who tried to push it past the limits, or don’t understand that you have to work your way up to the final dimension instead of trying to get there in one pass. After rolling a few rings out of 1” wide x 1/8” thick flat with it, I’d give it a 'meets expectations' rating. It is cheap and a little sloppy, but it does the job very well given its price. I found rolling the rings to be a cathartic process. Feed the material through while turning the handle, tighten up the adjustment knob a little, roll the material back through, repeat until you reach the final dimension. No hammers banging or hydraulic pumps whirring… just some simple machines working together to turn a flat thing into a round thing.
Once I had the rings rolled, I needed to cut them down to size. I wanted to make sure to give myself some extra material so I could dial the diameter in to exactly what I needed. The first ring I cut perfectly. The second ring, not so much.
I still don’t know how I screwed up so badly on the second one (top ring in the picture). I cut it over an inch shorter than what it should have been. I even stacked the pieces on top of each other to get the mark instead of trying to wrap one around the other. Either way, no amount of squeezing the ends together was going to get it right. In my wisdom, I did buy an extra piece of flat in anticipation of making a mistake. But just as I was going to bust out the roller to make a new one, I realized that cutting the ring short could actually work in my favor. Instead of **** welding the ends together, I could just cut a patch out of the leftover material and weld that on. This would give me four lap joints to weld instead of a single **** joint, which would make for a stronger piece in the end. As Bob Ross would say, a happy accident.
Once the rings were made, it was time to make the supports. The nice thing about making isosceles triangles is that there really isn’t anything to measure as long as you did a good job cutting your pieces to the correct lengths. I used some magnets to create a simple fixture on my weld table and got to tacking.
In no time at all, I had six triangles tacked and ready to assemble.
Once those were made, it was just a matter of getting everything welded together. A third hand would have been nice trying to get everything fit up, but I eventually got it sorted out. Again, I just let the pieces fit themselves together and was careful that nothing was trying to pull one way or another. I was running low on time by this point and forgot to take in-process pics. While my welds could certainly have been better, I’m happy with the end result.
(ignore the mess in the background, Smasher needed a fort so he could fight off the bad guys)
One still needs a little more grinding and sanding around the welds, but otherwise they are pretty much done. I couldn’t wait until Wife’s birthday to show her, so she got them a few weeks early and loves them. The only problem is that she isn’t sure where she wants to put them, but I told her she has a few months to figure that out. As we were admiring them, she also suggested using that leg design to make some new end tables for the house might be pretty cool - putting a wood top on them instead of a ring for a flower pot. So I guess I’ve got another project on the list.
Oh yeah, and that foreshadowing comment I made earlier about broken flower pots? I dropped one of them while I was fitting them to the rings and it cracked. A brand new flower pot that has never seen dirt is already broken. I think it was a 1 in a 1000 drop that it hit the edge just right as they seem to be pretty tough otherwise. Oh well, at least I went with an affordable option. If anything, the only thing I’m disappointed in with this project is that I still haven’t run out of C25 weld gas, which means I still haven’t gotten a bottle of argon for the new TIG welder. Probably for the best as I still need to knock out that spice rack project. Time to pack up the metalworking equipment and reset the shop for woodworking…
Until next time!
I am a gift bag and tissue paper guy. Cannot stand wrapping and my best job pales in comparison to my wife's so I let her handle all of the wrapping!
(and quick update.)
