I have a small welding and cnc plasma cutting shop at my house. I built the shop and started cutting about 7 years ago. I ran it as a very small business for a couple of years and did quite well for a sideline. I started having heart trouble and decided to retire from my "real job", construction management (no stress there), about 5 years ago. At that time the whole metal work thing became a hobby and I got another "real job" doing work around the house with my Wif as Boss. I have a lot of fun making stuff for myself and small paying jobs that keep me in walking around money. Every year I make a couple or three wall tent hunting stoves that you can see in another thread in the "non EPA stove" forum. I also do some serious artwork and some pieces for grins. Hope you enjoy the pictures metalcttr
I would think that would keep you in "walking around money". Really nice sign ideas for any wood-related business. And what a great toilet paper holder- you sould make one of a bear taking a dump. I just noticed- that's what that little pile is!
My Wif hates it. Well, maybe not hates it. She sees the humor in it but is worried I will put one in the house. I keep hinting that I'm going to, just to wind her up. Am I a Bad Person?
Awesome work metalcuttr ! I sure got a grin from the TP holder. What do you suppose that bear was doing in the woods there? Someday, if you’d be willing, I might have to send some “walking around money” your way for one of those saw signs. Do you have one of those pen-and-tablet type digitizers? I know a lot of folks can run into problems cutting artistic parts like that, especially when they try to use software to “flatten” an image. It can sometimes result in a drawing with lots of little tiny line segments that don’t cut well at the machine. We do quite a bit of math to try to “smooth” things out when that happens.
Shawn Curry lets just say that the TP holder is a positive affirmation to the age old question! I would be pleased to get together about a saw sign. I don't use a pen and tablet. I just click clickety click with the mouse and do my drawing that way. The Plasma Table people have an excellent program that is geared exactly to CNC plasma tables. The program will smooth, link, and convert to machine language at the touch of a button (no fooling with G code). All this is elementary stuff compared to what you folks at Hypertherm do. I seem to remember a video of one of your many axis cutters roughing out a huge part for an aircraft carrier. Absolutely stunning!
Funny thing about the chandelier. I actually journeyed out to the gals house and picked a bunch of blackberry leaves and brought them home and scanned them into my drawing program. I then laboriously traced each leaf so that when it was cut out it was one of HER leaves! I also made a small metal bug and put it on one of the vines ("Oh my God it has a BUG on it. That is sooo adorable!"). That whole project was a lot of (weird at times) fun!
W hen I cut a bunch of art pieces out of a sheet of metal it leaves a "tree" of connected scrap of various sizes. It is always a challenge to save or use up this scrap to get maximum yield out of your sheet. I always fit a bunch of things like little trout or leaves into the scrap areas to use it up. For a while I made a bunch of little items I called "Fish Sticks" that you could stick into your potted plants for fun. Then I had so many little fish I made a couple of wreaths and "heat painted" them with a torch and clear coated. These were received well. The one thing that I never would have guessed would be popular that I made out of the fish was key chains. You can even open a beer with the two bottom rear fins. Very Important. We sold scores of these at a local Township's craft fairs. I still get people calling and asking for them! Hope this is not too risqué!
