Don’t be embarrassed. That sometimes happens at your age!
Started building a bit like goes in a horses mouth today. Got the pattern drawn, transferred to a piece of galvanized flashing and transferred to my sheet of 3/16” thick 4130 steel. I rough cut em out with the plasma cutter. I profiled one all out the way I liked and then stacked the two shanks one on the other. I drilled an 1/8” hole toward each end and riveted the two shanks together with a couple pieces of welding rod. Then I profiled em to match on the belt grinder. I drilled out the round holes with a hole saw (that also took out my rivets) which I felt was totally cheating. The teardrop shaped holes I drilled holes to give me a place to stick the blade of my jewelers saw through and that’s when the fun began. It took 1-1/2hrs to cutout one teardrop. Lmao. But, it does do a nice job that doesn’t need much touch up. Maybe I’ll build the mouthpiece tomorrow after I cutout the other teardrop.
Very nice job! That's a lot of hand work with the coping saw on that thick of steel. Where's that plasma cutter?
I could’ve used the plasma but I figured I’d spend the same amount of time with a file and dremel cleaning the cut up as I did on the hand saw. If my hand twitches with the saw maybe I break the blade. With the plasma if I twitch, well, I might cause myself extra work having to fix the error. Hey, atleast with steel you can weld up the bad cuts and make em disappear, right!
Last edited:
That's why I like working with steel.
Screw ups are easy to fix. Wood, not so much, although I'm fixing to get tutored by a master wood worker in the near future.
4130 steel. I don’t know if it’s heavy or not but I do know it feels about right for it’s intended purpose and compared to other bits I have that horses like.
Edit: The third picture I posted was both shanks pinned together. So yeah that does look heavy if it was just one shank.
You are correct. He just ranches for the tax deduction.
