Dan Dubeau
Ultra Member
An egg collecting basket.
With the new addition of hens to the house I thought, the kids an I could make an egg basket for mothers day......I had a plan. It started so well.....
We trial bent some wires to get a sense of scale, and then made a template to bend the sides. They were made from some old file cabinet hangers. which is 1/8"x1/2".
Jr did all the bending of the sides. This might come up in a therapy session when he's older, but we learned the difference between his good enough, and my good enough on this one.....
. BUT he persevered and I think they came out great. The anvil was used to straighten out the 90* bend, but we tried a few different ways to do the curve and settled on hitting it on the inside with the cross pein hammer over vise jaws spread open and checking it against the template often.....I let him expirement with different ways he thought might work. We wrecked a few....
My Daughter gave me a hand welding the bottom washer together. She also jig sawed the template and sanded it smooth.
Here's where I ran into some problems.....My plan of tig welding a spiraling wire around the sides was a hair pulling experience. I'd get a couple nice welds strung together, then I'd blow the wire in 2. With no good way to repair it that didn't look like ass, I'd cut it off and start again. I think the most I made was 8 or 9. after more attempts than I'd like to admit to.....I threw in the towel, and moved on to other projects to roll this around for a while.... A month and a half exactly.
Last week with some extra dough in my pocket for once, I noticed princess auto had their 220v spot welder on sale.....Eureeka. Exactly what I need to finish this. When It got here yesterday I gave it a quick test on the materials used on the basket, and satisfied that it would work, I was able to finish it all up tonight after work.
I started by winding the coil of 9 gauge wire into a tighter coil than how it shipped as I figured it was easier to spring it out than in. Some pipe I have destined to become a knife vise at some point came in handy for this....
I filed a notch with a round file in the top electrode to fit the wire, and we're off.
Progress was fast, It only took about 25-30 minutes to get it all welded up. Looking back I should have taken a bit more time to finesses the wire a bit more. Welding annealed them and sprung them outward and around a bit. I didn't really catch it until I was halfway through, and the nightmares from the last experience of cutting it out to start again so many times made me adjust my tolerances and carry on.....
Here's what it looks like form the outside
The inside was a bit rougher looking, but still smooth enough to the touch, and cleaned up nice with a wire brush. The handle is some stainless rod I salvaged from something.
All cleaned up and washed I gave it a shot of rustoleum hammered bronze. and voila.
When the wife got home, the kids gave it to her, and she got to use it right away.
![20230627_193146[1].jpg](https://belkinlaw.ca/attachments/20230627_193146-1-jpg.36057/ "20230627_193146[1].jpg")
Just in time too, as we have a new addition....
With the new addition of hens to the house I thought, the kids an I could make an egg basket for mothers day......I had a plan. It started so well.....
We trial bent some wires to get a sense of scale, and then made a template to bend the sides. They were made from some old file cabinet hangers. which is 1/8"x1/2".
Jr did all the bending of the sides. This might come up in a therapy session when he's older, but we learned the difference between his good enough, and my good enough on this one.....
. BUT he persevered and I think they came out great. The anvil was used to straighten out the 90* bend, but we tried a few different ways to do the curve and settled on hitting it on the inside with the cross pein hammer over vise jaws spread open and checking it against the template often.....I let him expirement with different ways he thought might work. We wrecked a few....My Daughter gave me a hand welding the bottom washer together. She also jig sawed the template and sanded it smooth.
Here's where I ran into some problems.....My plan of tig welding a spiraling wire around the sides was a hair pulling experience. I'd get a couple nice welds strung together, then I'd blow the wire in 2. With no good way to repair it that didn't look like ass, I'd cut it off and start again. I think the most I made was 8 or 9. after more attempts than I'd like to admit to.....I threw in the towel, and moved on to other projects to roll this around for a while.... A month and a half exactly.
Last week with some extra dough in my pocket for once, I noticed princess auto had their 220v spot welder on sale.....Eureeka. Exactly what I need to finish this. When It got here yesterday I gave it a quick test on the materials used on the basket, and satisfied that it would work, I was able to finish it all up tonight after work.
I started by winding the coil of 9 gauge wire into a tighter coil than how it shipped as I figured it was easier to spring it out than in. Some pipe I have destined to become a knife vise at some point came in handy for this....
I filed a notch with a round file in the top electrode to fit the wire, and we're off.
Progress was fast, It only took about 25-30 minutes to get it all welded up. Looking back I should have taken a bit more time to finesses the wire a bit more. Welding annealed them and sprung them outward and around a bit. I didn't really catch it until I was halfway through, and the nightmares from the last experience of cutting it out to start again so many times made me adjust my tolerances and carry on.....
Here's what it looks like form the outside
The inside was a bit rougher looking, but still smooth enough to the touch, and cleaned up nice with a wire brush. The handle is some stainless rod I salvaged from something.
All cleaned up and washed I gave it a shot of rustoleum hammered bronze. and voila.
When the wife got home, the kids gave it to her, and she got to use it right away.
Just in time too, as we have a new addition....
