This was the first Project i made, me and my friend scotty were making a campsite down by the river (we paused construction on it due to the fact that we may or may not end up with the land down there when this family thing with dad is settled) and part of it was a fire pit. This was one of the reasons i switched into the class in the first place... so, the blue things are designed to be cemented into the ground, with the top flush with the brick or whatever the firepit would be made from. then the two parts made of square tubing (the tall metal pieces) would slide into it and the bar (in the middle) would sit on the notches that they have, on the bar is 8 rods welded and bent, this is something my friend jon came up with during the production, and its designed so you can put hotdogs or marshmellows on and they will cook... basically so if you get tired of holding the stick over the fire. on the sides of it is two hooks, little metal rings on the chain thats attached to what appears to be a grill goes on it, so you can raise or lower it over the fire. the metal rod on the ground with the bicycle handle grips on it is to do the raising and lowering, the bar will be hot so its convienient. put them at either side and with two people do the raising and lowering to whatever level. i still haven't had a chance to use this, but ive had it for a while now.
Next.
This was the second of the things i made. The original design of this particular grill is to be more of a warmer, it would go to one end of the fire pit me and scotty planned on making, and would be a place to put food to serve it and what not, you would put hot coals under it and that would keep the food warm. also my friends had another idea that we should make two squares that would be on top for things like hamburgers and stuff, just in case the grill was dirty from pots or whatever. but they can be used for either grill im sure... we made two of them, as you can see..
moving on.
The third thing was more of a class project, an assignment really, everybody (who wanted an A) was supposed to make one of these, the teacher gave us a basic layout of how it should be, and we went from there, i didn't get a whole lot of help with this one due to the fact my friends were make their own as well... anyways, this as you can tell, is a utility light. it has a 50 foot extention cord which goes to the box, the box has and outlet (2 plugins) and a light switch, this is convienient because you can attach power tools or whatever to it and so you have light where you work. and the extention cord and everything is all right there. the tube at the bottom-ish area has a spare light bulb in it. also this extends to about double the height it is right now. i did mess up a couple times during the construction, the main one was welding the tube to it, i accidentally burned through with the welder, ive done this in the past on other things and i just filled the hole and kept going, i did and it wasn't smart. the smaller tube got stuck when i slid it back in, i realized i kind of messed it up then and there, however i used the cutting torch and melted the tube off, and a big hole in the side as well. then i put a patch on and rewelded a different tube to the other side, so now there is a somewhat goofy looking patch on it, another mess up was with the box, i welded it on sideways, but figured it was no big deal and kept it like that.... all in all i think it turned out pretty good.
Continuing...
The fourth thing i made was something dad wanted, he could have bought one for only about 20 dollars or so, but i mentioned to him once that i needed something to make, so he gave me a picture of one of these and let me loose... this is a chain link fence stretcher, i had my friends helping me again when i made this, the hoop was made by them, the very day my friend jon saw the picture he found some sort of big pipe piece Mooner (which by the way is what everybody calls Mr. Moon, the teacher) had laying around, and he bent the rod around it and cut it. the hooks are made from links of a chain dad gave me, he put a cut in them in the center and i took them and me and my friends bent them straight, then we drilled holes in the pipe and put them in, welding them didn't work easy at first... but i realized my heat was too low, now its attached pretty good. then we welded the hoop and bent another rod and welded it.... a simple thing, but it will come in handy when we start working on fence. the way it works if you dont already know is the hooks grab the fence, and using a comealong which you attach to the hoop in the back, you strech the fence, and it should pull it evenly .
Finally,
The last thing i made may not look like much, but it will serve me a purpose. Basically the idea behind it is that i can attach it on the wall by the breaker box in my room, and the wall on the opposite side of it (which hasn't even been built yet) and there will be a piece of plywood over the breaker box which will rest on the rod in the center of it (both parts are identical, but i have the rods where they are to show where the holes are) and this will allow me to stretch my closet rod all the way accross without getting in the way of the breaker box, then when somebody needs to flip a breaker or anything you take the rods from the top hole and put them in the bottom one, which will cause the plywood (and the rod attached to them) to slide down, which will reveal the box, and when thats done you simply slide the wood back up and replace the rods to the top hole.... its just one of the things that i came up with one day....
so theres the things ive done within one semester of metalshop. ofcourse, at the time i had money, metal isn't free, the costs of things came up to being something like...
The Grills, (first and second) were about $70 from the school, but the rebar used to make the notches were supplied by my friend brad, and the chain on the hanging grill was bought by me, which was about $26 if i remember correctly.
The Light was $23 dollars, which isn't to bad considering....
The fence stretcher was $5, which is better than the $20 dad could have paid, plus it helped my grade.
and as for the bracket things it was just $2, this being because dad found the angle iron which made up the main part out where he worked, and gave them to me...
all-in-all it was over $100 dollars for it all. anyways, the way things worked for me is i would get an idea, tell and make a sketch of it to my friends, and they would pitch ideas that would make it better, then we made it. I enjoyed the class, and as you can tell its been a good (half) year.
