Homemade copper wind chime ... ...

Me again, for some time I've been thinking about making a wind chime, and I've finally managed it, and from mostly scrap copper, I did by 5 bits of gas fire tube from b&q they were on offer for £1 a length, I figured I'd get them, you never know when you might have need for 5 random bits of tube, and besides which although they had been painted black they were copper.

Now this wind chime does require some tools, like metal cutters, a pipe cutter and a small hole boring bit (you'll see why I needed that) a hacksaw and possibly the use of a small gas blow torch and some lead solder (all of which I have) although buying these tools isn't that expensive, but I would say in the case of the metal cutters it's worth spending a few quid extra for a good set.


Here's the wind chime -

It'll fit in the garden better when it goes green.

This another one I made, slightly different method of construction than the first - 

This one has a better chime to it.

 I made them from copper tubing I had lying about, along with some salvaged copper wire and the tube I got cheap from b&q.

Basically all I've done is cut out a star shape from a bit of the copper tube (I'll explain in a minute) and then using copper wire I've hung five small bits of tube and a small stone from the star shape, with a further bit of wire hanging from the stone to which I attached a small moon shape, again made from a bit of copper tube.

To cut out the star shape I used a bit of 22mm copper tube, and to turn it into a sheet I made a cut in it then opened it out wire two pairs of pliers, then to get it nice and flat I used a small hammer.

Cutting the tube (you could use a hack saw to cut it) -

I wasn't being too careful.

Section of tube ready to be turned into a small sheet -

Right off to the vice, which is handy for this type of thing.

In the vice being cut -

Nearly done.

And now opening it up - 

Once it's opened it's just a case of bashing it with a hammer.

Then all you need to do is lay the opened up tube on a flat surface and tap it gently with a hammer until it's flat, and you should then have a small copper sheet.

Like this -

Ready for a shape to be scribed onto it.

Next you need to draw your shape onto it, for this you should use something sharp like a scribe or maybe a small screw driver.

My scribe -

Pointy.

Now you need to cut out the shape you drew, this is where a set of metal cutters (tin snips) come in handy, you could cut out the shape with a hacksaw, but metal cutters are better.

The shape marked out and ready to be cut - 

My tin snips (metal cutters) - 

Quite old now.

Now before you start cutting ! put on some gloves, like leather gardening gloves, why ? well because the edges will be sharp and if you slip whilst cutting you'll end up with a nasty cut, and it'll hurt like hell (trust me I know) you can smooth the edges off with a bit of sand paper or a metal file.

The moon shape for the bottom of the chime - 

Bit dull isn't it.

Don't worry about the colour of the shape, or the tubes, you can give them a rub with a bit of wire wool, an old scouring pad to brighten them up a bit, but in the long run if you hang this outside it will eventually go a nice green colour as the copper oxidises which is known as vert de gris, I've put this one in the garden as I want it to go green.

After a bit of a scrub - 

Nice and clean now.

To hang all the bits together I used copper wire salvaged from an old pc power supply transformer, most electronic equipment contains copper wire in some for, normally on the transformer, and it can also be found in different gauges (thicknesses) We recently went through a load of old stereo equipment and found loads of it, it can be difficult to get the copper out, but in the long run it'll save a fair bit of cash compared to buying it.

My copper wire - 

There's loads of it on here.

Now simply hanging the tubes on plain wire is a bit boring so I tend to make braids from the wire first, this is basically just a case of taking four equal lengths of wire and twisting them together, which I do by holding the ends of the four lengths of wire in a vice, and the other ends I put in one of my cordless drills, then I slowly press the drills trigger and what I end up with looks like the picture below.

Twisted wire - 

Better than plain bits of wire.

Interestingly this method is how the old tribes of Britain used to make torcs and such like, only they didn't use drills to do the twisting, they did it by hand, and a lot better than me.

Right we have our small tubes for the chime, I used five (one on each point of the star) and kept them at equal lengths, but how long and how you arrange them is up to you.

To fix the wires to the star I drilled a hole on each point, then I just threaded a length of wire through the hole and put a not in it to stop it falling out, yes this wire can be knotted easily if you are gentle with it.

Wire knots - 

A small pair of pliers comes in handy for this.

My chime during construction - 

all shiny, for now.

I have to admit when it came to fixing the chime tubes to the star I was a bit puzzled, I couldn't think of a good way of doing it, and get the chime to look how I wanted, but after a bit of messing about I figured out a pretty good method.

What I did was to make five loops that fitted inside the tubes, then I could simply put the wire through the loop and twist it together.

Like this - 

Simply really.

To make the loops all I did was to drill a hole in each tube, just a small way from the end, then I poked a bit of copper wire through, I used thicker gauge wire as I don't want them to come out easily.

Here are the steps to make the loops for each chime - 

Wire threaded.

It's best to make sure there's a good amount of wire each side of the tube.

Next using a set of needle nosed pliers to pull the wire out of the tube.

Making the loop - 

Any thin nosed pliers should do.

And pull, making sure that the wire doesn't come out of each hole.

And we have a loop - 

Just a bit of tidying up now.

Now we just need to bend the wire up and snip of any extra.

The finished loop - 

It worked better than I thought it would.

Right onto the part that will hang in the middle of the chime and move about in the wind and make things chime, for this I used a pebble, but you could use a bit of wood, a bit of metal or anything else that will make a nice sound when it hits the metal chimes.

And that's why I needed a small hole boring bit, I found a 10mm (perhaps a bit big) in b&q for £2.99 not bad really, I could have just wrapped the wire around the pebble, it would have worked just as well.

The pebble striker - 

We seem to have a load of pebbles for some reason.

I made a length of twisted wire and threaded it through a hole on the middle of the star and the other end I tied to the pebble, I then used another length of twisted wire to attach the moon shape which hangs at the very bottom of the chime, I fixed the moon with another knot.

The moon - 

The pitting looks good I think.

As this is made with copper you can use a small bit of solder on the metal twists to hold things together, but as long as you twist things up nice and tight (use pliers) it should be fine.

I'm thinking of selling these in the shop, I think they are pretty cool, and I'm pleased that it worked as well, I haven't really done any of this type of metal work for years, and once it's turned green it should look even better.

A slightly better picture of the finished chime - 

Chimey whimey

Thanks for reading.

Magpie Monday - Homemade wines & drinks ...

I thought I'd add my two pence to this weeks Magpie Monday (well 50p actually)

We've been making our own wines for a couple of years now, and generally we have had some good drinkable wines, some more alcoholic than others, so far we've made blackberry,apple,plum, with shop bought plums, and with foraged plums and I've also made ginger wine.

Although making wine is easy enough it never hurts to have a book or two, and I figured that the recipe book for wines and drinks I noticed in one of our charity shops was worth it's 50p price tag, it's and old-ish book, but it has some very interesting recipes in it.

The book -

Originally published in 1963 (I think)

It has some very good stuff in it, including a Mead recipe, which I'm eager to try, it also has some what might be considered odd recipes, like Beetroot wine, along with other types of veg, like celery and spiced carrot, not sure if I want to try them to be honest.

Beetroot wine (I wasn't making it up) - 

I'm not a fan of Beetroot.

It's a good book if you enjoy a bit of foraging as well, these a good and easy to make recipe for Rosehip syrup which is very good for staving of colds in winter as Rosehips have a very high vitamin c content.

Rosehip syrup - 

Will be trying this.

And it's not all alcoholic drinks either, it has some stuff that kids will love, mainly involving chocolate, things like the chocolate marshmallow float and loads of others, the book also offers some simple tips for decorating glasses and of course good glass keeping practices.

The Marshmallow float - 

I'm not a fan of chocolate, but I'm liking the sound of this.

So all in all for 50p there's a lot in this book to keep me busy for a while.

Thanks for reading.

Homemade spindle sander ... ...

This is a bit of a cheat really, but one of my recent projects required the use of a spindle sander, however I don't have one, so I made one, well it's more of a router table kind of thing.

Spindle sanders are very expensive and as I'll probably only use it now and then I can't really justify the expense (especially not at over £100 a throw) so I decided to turn my old router into a spindle sander, which did mean I had to buy a set of drum sanders and a few washers, but at £15 this is a lot cheaper.

Basically I found the centre of the plywood sheet and then cut out a hole the right size to fit the sanding drum into, I then used the plastic cover from the bottom of the router as a template and marked out a series of holes on a piece of plywood so I could fix the router to the wood and use it upside down.

The plastic template -

Worked quite well as a guide.

Hole saw, these come in very handy - 

Not the best picture.

I counter sunk the fixing holes to make sure that the fixing bolts wouldn't get in the way of what ever I was trying to sand, I used a Forstner bit to make the counter sinks, I made the holes big enough to fit the washers in as well.

Forstner bit (some people call them hinge cutters) - 

You can usually get these in sets.

The plywood plate with holes ready for fixing - 

Ready for the router.

The next thing to do was fix the router to the plywood, this was easy enough, as it was just a case of bolting the two bits together, I did take the router apart to make it easier to fix things together.

The routers plunge assembly - 

I had to find some longer bolts for fixing.

All fixed together - 

Ready to be fixed back on the router.

Once the plunge attachment was fixed to the wood it was just a case of fitting it back on the router and then fitting a sanding drum, I got a set with 5 different sized sanding drums, at the moment I'm using the largest, but as there are different sizes I have a fair bit of choice as to what I can do with the sander / router in terms of shaping wood.

Drum fitted - 

All done.

From a different angle - 

Ready for testing.

One of the other sanding drums from the set I have - 

It's just a big chunk of rubber with a bolt through it.

With sand paper tube attached - 

Smaller versions of this normally come with multi tools.

To use the sander I just fixed a piece of wood to one end of the plywood sheet so that I could grip it in the large vice I have in my shed, it also makes it easy to store as well, and as space is currently at a premium in my shed easily storing things is handy.

Mounted in vice - 

It's more secure than it looks.

It works ! - 

No it's not a loo seat.

Its not perfect, a proper spindle sander oscillates (goes up and down while spinning) and this doesn't,but for what I want it for it's pretty good, I guess if you had a router table you could do the same thing, mine does vibrate a fair bit, and it makes a lot of noise, but it does the job, and it means I can finish the lathe steady I'm making (that's what the thing that looks like a loo seat is) it also means I didn't have to spend a shed load of money.

Thanks for reading.

Oh the horror ! it's Frankenchair ... ...

This is probably one of the most bodgit & scarper things I've done (well almost) however the end result is quite comfy.

A while ago my office chair broke, the chair part was okay it was just the ram that raised it and lowered it that broke, so I got a new chair and kept the seat part from the broken one, well you never know when you might have need of seat.

Last year the wooden rocking chair we got from freecycle also suffered an injury, from the kids who loved it, perhaps a little too much, and again I kept the parts thinking I could fix it, but as it turns out it would have cost a fair bit to sort it out, so the the bits stayed in my shed.

Today I got round to merging the two chairs, I've taken the office chair and basically fixed the rocker from the rocking chair onto the bottom of it, it's worked better than I thought, but it will need some tidying up, that's if I can get it back from the kids who have decided it's theirs now, I had thought I'd use it as a gaming chair, so much for that idea.

Here's Frankenchair -

The bear is not mine.

One leather rocking chair ;-) the spindles that make up the rocker frame don't really go with the rest of it, so I may re-turn them on my lathe, it is very comfy, in fact it's more comfy than the original rocking chair, it looks a little lop sided in the above picture but it's not, honest.

From the side - 

The colour of the arms and the rocker frame don't really match.

You might have noticed the arms, these aren't the originals, I had to make two new arms for the chair a year or two ago, when the plastic ones cracked, I wrote a post about it, which you can find here ---> How to fix the arms of an office chair (opens in new window)

As it turns out the rocker frame was just screwed into the base of the old rocking chair seat, so I fixed the rocker frame to the base of the office chair, which just happened to have a thick piece of plywood in the base, perfect for fixing to.

The base (apologies for the bad picture) - 

6 2 1/2 inch screws and job done.

So although it may not fit in with the rest of the decor it can be used, and is a nice place to sit, despite being two different chairs merged into one monster, my wife has said she may cover it and give it a spruce up.

Thanks for reading.

Patio table made from pallets ... ...

Just a quick post, I'm still finding things to make with various bits of pallet wood, this time I've made a small table for the patio, it's made in much the same way as the play kitchen, and will replace the very wobbly blue plastic table the kids have been using.

Here it is -

It's already had a coat of linseed oil.

Pretty easy to build, I've been lucky in that some of the pallets I had, had large support pieces, these have been great for table legs and other things, as you can see in the picture above.

Here's a couple of diagrams to show how it's made -

The sides.

Click on the pictures for a better view.

 The top and support piece - 

Don't forget to look at the photo's

As it says in the diagrams you should add a support piece between the two legs, this will help with stability, if you have enough wood you can even make this into a small shelf.

The support piece - 

Stops the legs from being forced apart.

 

Once that's done you may want to give the top a sand, I went over the whole thing with my belt sander, if the wood you use is rough having a power sander is a big help, then all you need to do is decide what colour you want it, I just gave it a good coating of linseed oil, but you could stain it, paint it with a good exterior gloss type paint.

And there you have it, yet another use for a load of old pallets.

Thanks for reading.

A break in the storm (allotment update) ...

I have finally managed to get down the allotment, what with the rain and other things I haven't been able to get anywhere near a spade or a fork.

Not much has changed since I last visited the plot, apart from the weeds, they seem to be doing quite well, some of our spuds have started to grow, and some of the other things.

This is what greeted me -

Not as bad as I though it was going to be.

 The top section, a few more weeds.

I should point out that the large expanse of green to the right of the pictures is the other half of the plot, which isn't managed by us.

As it turns out it wasn't too hard to get things in order, the rain has made the soil quite easy to dig, that and the almost constant digging over of the unused areas (we dig it over each time we visit) we finally seem to be winning against the weeds, although I did notice a fair bit of bindweed coming up in places, will have to keep an eye on that, evil stuff, but has quite nice flowers.

After about an hour I'd cleared the spud rows and the strawberry bed, which is doing quite well.

The spuds -

The green bits you can see are spud plants.

The top section -

Ready for growing stuff.

The strawberries we got from freecycle last year are doing well, I had to do a little weeding, and I found a use for the wood shavings I've been collecting.

The strawberries - 

Before weeding, some good plants, some quite small.

After weeding -

All nice and tidy, with a layer of mulch to help keep weeds at bay.

I knew I'd find a use for the waste from turning wood in the shed, I had 3 bin bags full, which is now being put to use at the allotment, I also used a load to help keep weeds under control around the raspberry plants, which we have many more of now, I keep finding them.

The raspberries - 

Still looks messy at this end of the plot.

And I even managed to make a start on clearing the section where the polytunnel will go, it's very over grown, so much so that because of the roots of brambles, hogweed and various other things I couldn't get anywhere with a fork, so a went at it with my spade.

Polytunnel area (if I ever get it built) - 

There's still a load of raspberry plants in there.

And this is as far as I got - 

Getting there.

It seems that whoever had the plot before us had some bits of paving slab, which over time had gotten buried about 6 inches down, unfortunately as I was having to be a little brutal with the weed roots I rammed the spade straight down on one of these bits, which caused a fair bit of pain in my hands ( I had them operated on a few years ago, they still aren't as strong as they used to be) so I figured I'd call it a day there.

The last job was the plot number, according to the rules the plots have to be clearly marked, and apparently writing the number in permanent marker isn't really what the council meant, who knew, anyway I made a sign.

The sign - 

It's just burned into a bit of scrap wood.

I found a font I liked and printed it out on a bit of a4 paper, then I traced the outline onto the wood (a bit of pallet) and then burned it into the wood, and then gave it a coat of varnish, it should be more acceptable than permanent marker.

All done - 

Should last longer than the marker pen ;-)

And that's about it, I'll be down there again soon, it's a fair bit of work, but worth the effort in the long run, I have two small raised beds to make, one for each of the kids so they can grow their own stuff, and there's the polytunnel as well (I've even figured out how to collect water from it) and of course the endless battle between human and weed, least now I can get on with my small wind powered garden light without feeling I'm neglecting the allotment.

Thanks for reading.