Tag: Fabrication

Forging and Fabricating

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I can do and make bunches of stuff: Everything from joinery to electronics, from wood turning to machining, from bookbinding to electrical, from carving to heavy machine operation, but there are certain things that I have never really been able to do in the world of hand-craft, mostly due to lack of exposure or instruction. Chiefly among these things are/were forging/blacksmithing and metal shaping. The latter composed of shaping and bending sheet metal into forms and objects.

I decided this year to work on those deficits and have been taking some forging and fabrication classes at The Pratt Fine Arts Center in Seattle. A couple nights a week, I leave work and hammer, shape, weld, grind, and make stuff out of steel. I have been at it for 5 weeks and am really please with both The Pratt and all that I am learning. I have also learned that while I have dipped my toe in these waters, that there is a ocean of knowledge out there. I do not have any want to be a full-time blacksmith or fabricator, but I want to keep learning, so I can add some of the techniques and pieces to stuff that I already build and add to my repertoire of ability and understanding. Below are some of the pieces that I have made, tools I am using, and some stuff that I am working on. I am putting together a little video as well.

Project built for my truck – the one I sold 2+ years ago…

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

So this post is a little bit delayed.  It has been sitting in my draft folder for almost three years.  It may be time to publish it…

My 2011 Nissan truck had a very cool really system for holding gear in the back of the truck: an extruded aluminum track along the side rails and two in the bottom of the bed.  They made sliding tie points for use on the rails that were great for some stuff, but I needed more to really strap a load down when hauling brush and debris to the dump.  I looked at buying more from Nissan, but they wanted >$200 for the set of 4.  No thank you!  I did what any engineer would do:  Designed my own and went into the machine shop and made a few prototypes out of aluminum scrap that was laying about.

I made one version with an offset bend for the side walls and the other with a 90 degree bend for use on the bed floor rails.  I might change the latter a little as I found that while a standard small ratchet strap or rope had no effect on it, if I used a large ratcheting load strap, I could bend it.

I also found that the rails were the exact same dimension as commercial uni-strut (standardized formed metal structural system used in electrical, plumbing and HVAC installations for structural support).  Parts are available at all the Big-Box home stores and I was able to pick up a bag of 10 threaded nut plates for ~$8.00 and 1/4″ hex-head bolts of various lengths for another $5.00.  The prototypes worked so well that I made more and with my hold down solution and the OEM tie points, I could haul anything I really wanted and make sure it was securely fastened:  Refrigerators, lumber, yard trimmings, fire wood, trash, you name it.

I added the side walls of a wooden shipping crate to my new truck bed system, bolted directly to the side rails using the uni-strut nut plates and then strapped over the whole load with 2″ straps.  I found the installation took me 15 minutes from start to finish and it made dump and material runs super simple.  It was even faster to remove and store in the garage so I didn’t drive around town like I worked for Sanford & Son.

Truck tie loops

Truck Tie Downs 2012-3 (2)

Truck Tie Downs 2012-3 (1)

Truck Tie Downs 2012-3 (3)

Truck Tie Downs 2012-3 (4)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I sold the truck in December of 2013, but I kept the OEM Nissan tie points as well as the ones I made.  I will use them on my next truck, or possibly my next trailer.  I will just install uni-strut on the sides and on the deck and I will make it that much more useful.