When I bought my Cobel TIG welder, I had in mind macho things like exhaust systems. However...
A friend of mine came back the other week from a visit to her parents and it seems she and her mum had got all creative. I'm sure alcohol was involved somewhere
Anyway, knowing I was into welding, she presented me with a sketch and a brief outline of what it was for. The shape of the head was one requirement but I could square off the petals "if the curves are too difficult" (bit of gauntlet-chucking there...)
Also a wooden handle for heat insulation. I know nothing about cooking so I just followed the spec.
So, what about something like this, then?
Well, I reckoned that for a start, a cooking utensil needed to be made from stainless so I got hold of a load of 3mm round in 304. Then I started to design the parts. There was no way on this Earth that I was going to give in and square off the petals so I delved into my school maths and, given the diameter of the centre ring from the sketch and the outside diameter of the petals, worked out the radius of curvature of the petals along with the distance between the ends of each petal. I bought a small ring-roller and made each petal to a constant radius (I actually rolled them all in one go from a long length of round bar), then cut them into pieces and folded each one in the middle. I annealed each bend with a MAPP torch and adjusted them by hand to the correct dimensions.
The centre and the hanging ring were both made by bending the round on a mandrel (wooden curtain pole for the centre-ring).
I had already decided that despite being told that anything functional would do, a kitchen utensil had to look good. So I made a makeshift welding table from a 30cm square piece of 3mm mild and clamped the pieces to keep them flat while welding. How surprised do you imagine I was when the petals fitted perfectly around the centre?
Each petal was TIGged to the ring without filler. I should have stopped there but I had an idea that it would be better not to leave narrow gaps for food to get trapped into so I followed the joins outward a bit. I'd exercise more discipline in future as I think this harmed the aesthetics to no practical benefit.
The "stem" is 4mm round 304. The handle caps are turned from 14mm 304 stainless round and the "stem" has some pips welded to it as a key to stop the wooden handle from turning. The caps were my final justification to myself for buying a mini-lathe. The handle is also turned on the lathe - my first-ever attempt at wood-turning.
I used pickling paste (eek!) to remove the blueing from welding and annealing and all the metal parts were polished at various stages using a Dremel-look-alike instead of a full-size polisher due to the small diameter of the pieces. I bought a polishing set including coarse, medium and fine polishing compounds.
Initial feedback from daughter is favourable. Let's see if "Mum" reckons it's worth one of her amazing dinners
A friend of mine came back the other week from a visit to her parents and it seems she and her mum had got all creative. I'm sure alcohol was involved somewhere
Anyway, knowing I was into welding, she presented me with a sketch and a brief outline of what it was for. The shape of the head was one requirement but I could square off the petals "if the curves are too difficult" (bit of gauntlet-chucking there...)
Also a wooden handle for heat insulation. I know nothing about cooking so I just followed the spec.
So, what about something like this, then?
Well, I reckoned that for a start, a cooking utensil needed to be made from stainless so I got hold of a load of 3mm round in 304. Then I started to design the parts. There was no way on this Earth that I was going to give in and square off the petals so I delved into my school maths and, given the diameter of the centre ring from the sketch and the outside diameter of the petals, worked out the radius of curvature of the petals along with the distance between the ends of each petal. I bought a small ring-roller and made each petal to a constant radius (I actually rolled them all in one go from a long length of round bar), then cut them into pieces and folded each one in the middle. I annealed each bend with a MAPP torch and adjusted them by hand to the correct dimensions.
The centre and the hanging ring were both made by bending the round on a mandrel (wooden curtain pole for the centre-ring).
I had already decided that despite being told that anything functional would do, a kitchen utensil had to look good. So I made a makeshift welding table from a 30cm square piece of 3mm mild and clamped the pieces to keep them flat while welding. How surprised do you imagine I was when the petals fitted perfectly around the centre?
Each petal was TIGged to the ring without filler. I should have stopped there but I had an idea that it would be better not to leave narrow gaps for food to get trapped into so I followed the joins outward a bit. I'd exercise more discipline in future as I think this harmed the aesthetics to no practical benefit.
The "stem" is 4mm round 304. The handle caps are turned from 14mm 304 stainless round and the "stem" has some pips welded to it as a key to stop the wooden handle from turning. The caps were my final justification to myself for buying a mini-lathe. The handle is also turned on the lathe - my first-ever attempt at wood-turning.
I used pickling paste (eek!) to remove the blueing from welding and annealing and all the metal parts were polished at various stages using a Dremel-look-alike instead of a full-size polisher due to the small diameter of the pieces. I bought a polishing set including coarse, medium and fine polishing compounds.
Initial feedback from daughter is favourable. Let's see if "Mum" reckons it's worth one of her amazing dinners