What is the "COOLEST" thing you ever made?

Nice job...........

-- "Pay peanuts.....expect monkeys."

Verry nice Bob. How much time did that take you to do the whole process? I can see you will need a custom knife case made for that.

I have about 35 hour in it.

No knife case for this, it is for sale on my website.

What is cool about it is that as far as I know (and nobody in the knifemaking community has challenged the claim) it is the first and only one ever made completely out of damascus. Others have welded damascus blades onto spikes, but they do not make the spike themselves out of it.

Anyway, this is something that has attracted a LOT of attention. So, I thought I would find out what others have made that is "Cool."

Bob

Well the most famous thing I built was the dragon for the Seattle Opera's production of the Ring Cycle back in '96. It was the last straw for me, and I walked out after that, never to return. Still it was a damn impressive beast. It was based on the concept of a steam shovel.

5700 lbs of aluminum and steel that floated on air casters. It belched fire, drolled liquid nitrogen, coughed smoke and had spinning teeth.

I was told by a viewer of the show that when it belched fire over the audience his wife peed her pants.

I have built things that I am much prouder of, like the 30 foot bronze collumn inside a house, or the sweep stair rails, or chandeliers, and a realy cool 2 ton staircase I built 2 years ago, but the dragon was the most famous item.

That sounds like a great piece of work, on a LARGE scale.

Very nice metal - the pattern.

Hand pounding or machine - details ?

Martin

Hand forged. Propane forge and a lot of hammer work.

There are nine layers of steel, five layers of 1084 and four layers of

15N20 alternating. Then forge welded together, heated and twisted, hand forged to the spike and then hand forged into the knife. Heat treated, final ground, polished then etched in Ferric Chloride. Hand polished to 2000 grit and coated with carnuba wax to prevent rusting.

Bob

Come on guys, who else has made interesting objects? I made a pretty cool coffee table once that got good comments. I know you guys are doing more than just work related stuff. There must be someone out there that has built an exceptional or unusual item.

I do copper structures/sculptures. I made a pair of garden gates that the owners really love.

Nice gates. I like the Sunrise Sunset thing and how the gates reflect it.

Great job.

Thanks

that's my coolest thing. no pics of the engine yet.

Peter

It has to be the latest *big* pulsejet engine I built. It's so cool it even starts by itself without the need for forced air -- just turn on the fuel and the spark and away it goes!

More info and a short vid on my website at http:/aardvark.co.nz/pjet/ And yes, it also doubles as a BBQ for those long summer nights ;-)

-- you can contact me via

Good detail - thanks for the feedback. Lots to try in life nowadays!

Martin

Many years I had the pleasure of building a gangway for the USS Constellation in Baltimore. It is still in use today. All aluminum with oak treads. A mixture of MIG, TIG handrails, and riveted deck.This was a solo project. Just me.

I also had a hand in building the 2 bridges onto the Boston Aquarium.

John

Bob wrote:

Cool! Next time I'm there I'll take a close look.

-- Mark

Coolest thing I ever made was some handrails at the #13 parking lot, Hoover Dam.

They will probably be there for 100 years.

STeve

I welded (with a little help from my friends) the upper and lower bearing brackets on unit A-4 in Hoover Dam, also lube oil lines, the stator housing and assorted other stuff related to the uprates on units A-4 and A-5. Six months worth of welding.

JTMcC.

My coolest thing? Often it is the last project I completed.

My most recent is a set of 'swing hangers' for the kid's swing set my son-in-law is making for his kids (my grandkids). There were a number of problems I had to solve for this one and deriving the solutions--i.e., learning something new--was very interesting. The parts I made will outlast these kids.

Moving away from the 'most recent' I'd have to say that I am particularly proud of the "grow op" I made. It is an indoor plant growing rack. It is

5' long, 6' high by 3' wide. It has four layers of 4' neon lights, 16 tubes in all. My wife uses it to get an early start on garden plants for the spring. And, she grows lettuce and other greens so we have them fresh in the winter. When it was all welded up, I found that it was almost perfectly square. Prior to building this, the only other similar structure I made was my welding cart (miller 180sd) and it turned out unsquare. I learned from that earlier project that I applied to the growing rack.

Inadvertantly, I described the plant growing rack to a guy who supplies the local, highly illegal, marijuana growing industry with equipment and he said he'd buy as many as I could produce. I passed on that offer.

Ciao, David Todtman

Got a picture of the plant rack? Sounds like something MY wife would like to have.

Bob