happy birthday papaw!

[Plyerman]

Well happy extra-belated birthday to you Pawpaw, and OMG, check out that wrench!!

Any chance you could write up a little how-to on how that wrench was made John?

[rudeawakening55]

Happy Birthday & many more !!

[fflintstone]

The top one is a wood pattern. Stain and poly u varnish. The bottom one is 12 1/2 lbs of raw aluminum sand casting.

I assume the top one is a wood mold for the bottom one?

[JeremyManning]

Happy Birthday

[bonneyman]

The B-man sends his congrats and best wishes!

[anglesmith]

Happy Birthday. Hope you have picked a spot to hang that very "rare and unique" wrench on the wall!  Thanks to JIS for going to such a great effort of making that marvelous wrench, you're well worthy of such a gesture. What you do for us on this forum is much appreciated.
Graeme

[Branson]

Both cool and heart-warming.  Congratulations all around.

[johnsironsanctuary]

OK Plyerman, here goes.

A friend gave me a 36 inch long chunk of 4X6 inch  basswood. Basswood is incredibly easy to carve. It is one step up from balsa wood. I found a photo of an IRON AGE cutout wrench and printed it out as big as I could and drew a gridwork of squares on the printout. By dividing the number of squares on the printout into 36 inches, I got the size to draw the squares on a 36 inch sheet of paper. I never throw away big desk calenders. I drew each square out full size on paper. Next step was to cut out a paper pattern and mark it on the wood after I ripped the board down from 4 to 2 inches. Next was cutting the outline with a fret saw. A bandsaw would have been lots faster. Wood rasps were used to clean up the rough shape.  I used my tabletop mill to shape the web.  The letters were just sketched. Over and over until I liked it. End mills, carving chisels and forstner bits cut out the letters.  Wood rasps and rifflers to shape the letters, all the while trying for 5 degrees of draft on everything so that it could be pulled from the sand mold. A small Stanley block plane helped radius the edges.Sanding took a long time. Basswood is stringy and the end grain does not sand easily.  Got mad at it one night and stained it. A day later I gave it one coat of varnish. After that it was easier to sand the end grain. Varnish and sand, varnish and sand then varnish and sand again. The last coat of poly urethane was from a spray can. It was a better finish than the brush.
I googled aluminum foundries in my neighborhood and found the one that eventually did the casting. Seven weeks later, here we are.

[Plyerman]

Awesome! Very impressive work John, I'm glad you thought to take those "in-process" photos!

[johnsironsanctuary]

Many thanks to everyone that bought one.  The 'master' went to the foundry yesterday with an order for 6 pieces. They again promised about two weeks. We'll see how that works. I ordered one for myself. That means I can make more later.  I talked to the foundry manager and he said that he was fearful of what might happen to the wood pattern if he used it repeatedly. His words," My staff is not made up of rocket scientists".

Thanks for your patience Papaw. This is dragging out way beyond what I had expected.

[fflintstone]

happy birthday again!

[RedVise]

Happy Birthday Papaw !!


Hmmm... is that a piece of birthday cake I spy in your profile ???


Congrats !!      Brian

[HeelSpur]

Happy B-Day Papaw

[Papaw]

Yep. Made it another year!
I have been on vacation the last few days, I almost never work on my birthday if I can help it.

[rudeawakening55]

  Happy Birthday from Oklahoma..........have a good one.