Whether you are creating intricate jewelry or repairs on large machinery and vehicles, metalworking can help make your projects come to life. But it’s not enough to just have the right equipment; knowing a few tips and tricks of the trade will take your creations to the next level! In this blog post, we’ll be discussing some essential metalworking tips that all makers should know in order to perfect their craft.
Zachary Coffin‘s Colossus is a large-scale sculpture of wood and steel that holds massive granite rocks suspended above the ground. Ropes hanging from the rocks are pulled by attendees of Maker Faire Bay Area 2011, setting the entire seventy foot tall structure slowly spinning with great inertia.
Calling all parts recyclers, pick-and-pull repurposers, and lovers of all things metal! Back in MAKE Volume 17, John Todd shared a veritable catalog of ways to remove various substances, from rust to paint to petrified grease, from metal. John breaks down mechanical methods, chemical methods, and the electrolytic method, complete with a how-to for building […]
Looking for that classy Dr. Who touch? Simon Jansen made TARDIS cufflinks from an N-scale model train Police Box. It just took some light metalworking (basically using a razor saw) and painting, and the cufflinks nicely match his TARDIS MAME console.
Joe Sandor and the crew from Chicago Crucible demonstrate an iron pour at Maker Faire Detroit 2011. These metalheads collected metal from old radiators and coke from a Detroit power plant and then fired up the furnace. They poured the molten steel into a watermelon and other decorative molds, which were created at the Faire. Learn more about the lost art of the iron pour.
Anyone who’s tried it knows that “pipe” or “tube welding” is an art that takes a while to master. This outstanding phototutorial by Amy Qian won’t substitute for the hours of practice needed to draw a good bead around a fishmouth seam, but if you’ve got the chops…
There are certainly a lot of reasons to like this video by Meg Allan Cole over at CRAFT. In it, she shows how to repurpose an old typecase into a coffee table by attaching it to a welded base and fitting a custom glass top.
Make: Live episode 14 is all about metalworking.
