Working With Metal Continued

Here I'm getting ready to weld the circle closed. To hold my work piece, I'm using two clamps. one is resting on my welding bench while it's also clamping a second clamp. The second clamp is holding my work piece closed so I can weld it. The third clamp on the right is to rest my hand on while I'm welding. Whatever works ya know...
 

Working With Wood

My daughter sent this pattern to me and wanted it made out of wood. This dog bone will be hand held, and will have a round ring on one end. This ring will pass over the buzz wire from one end to the other, and if everything goes right, this puzzle will be solved. But if that ring touches the buzz wire, the person will have to start over.
 

I'll be making the dog bones out of alder, which is a very nice hard wood. I cut the pieces over size to 9 1/2" but my target dimension is 9.0". The width is 3 1/2" and the thickness will be 3.0" when finished. I'm making three of these, with one being a backup in case something happens or gets broken while in use.
 

I'm going to make the rings that will be attached to the dog bones next. The material is mild steel, 1 1/2" diameter and should work great for this.
 

A few hours later here is what I made. The shape of these came from an old 'bearing race' that I had laying around and when Matt saw it, he said he liked it. But I only had one so I made these three to match the original. The size is 1 3/8" outside diameter, 1 1/8" inside diameter by 5/8" wide. I'll get back to these later.
 

Working With Wood Again

I'm squaring my dog bone work pieces with my table saw. However, it's a good thing my wood pieces weren't any larger because my blade was all the way up and it just made it.
 

My work piece is slightly oversize on all the dimensions at 9 1/4" X 3.0" X 3.0". Now it's time to slice it in two pieces, cut the shape of the bone on my bandsaw, put in some holes and a slot and then do some contouring.