Metal Shop: Day 2

Today marks the second full day in shop. Things are progressing well with the chair, although I haven't worked with steel before so I can't quite gauge when I'll be finished. I've still got quite a ways to go though. Here's a picture from end-of-day yesterday:



All of the 25mm structure was bent except for two pieces. I actually had a few goof ups (both mine and Flemming's fault) that resulted in 7 welding locations on the main structure. It kind of stinks, but it really shouldn't be that bad. A lot of people have that many welds anyway. Flemming and I wasted a bit of time bending in the morning, so I was glad to get as far as I did.

Today, I vowed to at least get my structure connected. Not welded, but connected. An interesting thing about steel tube is that you'd be surprised how many welds are actually in what looks like a continuous tube. And all those welding points need to be connected before they're welded. And in order to do that, you have to slide a smaller diameter tube in both ends of bigger tube. It stays in there, giving a small amount of structural support to the frame.

What sucks about using 25mm tube, though, is that it's 2mm thick, so you'd need a 21mm tube to use as a connector. We only have 20 and 22mm available. That means you have to slice a 22mm long-ways and bend it inward on itself. Not very fun. Although, now I consider myself pretty good at using the grinder.

And here's where I am as of 2:30pm today:





Tomorrow I grind each edge to get it ready for welding. Then I rig it up and start going to town. I may do a few practice runs before taking on my piece.

Here are some other pictures from throughout the shop:



First, the tube cutter. It's pretty straight forward. Through the door you can see one of the welding stations. The bright orange curtain keeps us from accidentally blinding ourselves when walking into the room.



And here's the tube bender. It's got about 6 million knobs that adjust tons of different things. It can sometimes take two to operate: one to pull the crank and one to keep an eye on the angle and make adjustments. I pretty much just helped to set up the pipe for bending and pulled the crank.



These are a few of the tables where we do detail work: filing, hack-sawing, cleaning.



This is the GINORMOUS laser cutter. I am sooo envious. Too bad I'm not doing anything that can utilize this baby.

It's starting to get a little exciting, seeing something I designed start to take shape. Although part of me is still a little nervous at how the dual tube spine and steel rods are going to go. Once the rods start going into place, I think I'll really be excited. And when I see it powder coated, I think I'll wet myself. But that's still a good 10 days off.

I'm absolutely loving having morning shop. I leave my dorm just after 6am, and I get to see a more peaceful Copenhagen. The sun is still low then, even though it has been up a while. I'm going to be kind of sad to make the move to evening shop next week, but it probably means that I'll be able to stay a little later or come in a little earlier if I need to. Plus, I'll be able to sleep. I'm having a hard time willing myself to bed at 9pm. I was made for the evening.

I've got a few more posts coming your way, hopefully later tonight. I still need to review Dark Knight, and I've got two more days of the Scandinavia trip to sum up. Stay tuned.