Metal Working

[Cecil]

I know there are some folks on this forum with extensive metal work experience. Does anyone incorporated metal work with their wood work.  When I was in 8th grade shop class, I made a magazine rack combining some flat bar scroll work with wood.  I am thinking about picking up a Chiwanese metal bender and incorporating some metal features in my work.

[The Tinman]

I'm one of those that do both wood and metal, and I have used my metal working tools to do a lot of tooling and hardware for my projects, but I really haven't incorporated much into the design. If you have something in mind that you want to add scroll work into, I can only add encouragement. Besides a bender, you would probably want to add some way to cut the bar stock to length. Using a hacksaw will get real old real quick.

[daddo]

If you start working with metal, it won't be long before you start craving a mig welder, a good grinder or better, a belt grinder, good drill bits, reamers, rivets and riveter, hand grinders, and all that stuff.
Metal at the box stores costs many times over what you pay at a supplier. 1" flat x 21' here costs about 12 bucks at the supplier. At the box store- 6' of the same is about 15 bucks if I remember.

I haven't incorporated metal and wood yet, but I do have plans on solid metal/wood tool handles this fall.

[Downwindtracker2]

That's how I got my machine shop, well a metal lathe and a mill/drill. A cabinetmaker was shutting down his studio, he had purchased them to do some metal work for one of his designs.

[mike4244]

I do mostly metal work now. I am what you call a home shop machinist. My woodworking tools do not get much use anymore.
Metal working tools consist of power hack saw, milling machine, two drill presses, two lathes , and a shop made 1" x 42" belt sander. The metal working tools come in handy to build wood working tools too. I built a wood lathe, panel saw, drum sander. I also have built a horizontal band saw for a friend that uses it to saw lumber.
mike

[TGW]

Hand forged iron hardware have for centuries been an integral part of woodworking. At time one can find surprisingly clever designs that the oldtimers have come up with.
I think modern fabrication from cut and cold bent parts welded together is a method more suitable for parts for a harrow or for barn doors than for things you bring inside the house.

I think you should get a forge and an anvil and a leg vice and a bunch of hammers and tongs sp you can make proper goodlooking scrolls and other nice shapes on your custom hardware.

I am not a very good blacksmits but usually when I need a forged part I find a way to make it using an old portable forge that I found on the dge of a field and got for free and rebuilt, and an anvil I found at a local scrapyard and then rebuilt, and a leg vice that I bought from a diseased blacksmith's estate. Tongs and hammers and set hammers are flea market finds.
I think I have around 150 euros plus a good bit of rebuild time tied up in my blacksmith's tools.

I also have a big DC stick welder and a gear head drill press and a few grinders and such. In fact I do a lot more fabrication work than blacksmithing but my fabrications are for more practical needs where looks don't matter too much.
Some day when I get rich I want a metal lathe........ a 14" metal shaper is on it's way home within a month or two.

[ez-duzit]

Many of my (boat building) projects combine wood and metal. And I have vertical mill, metal lathe, metal bandsaws, tig welder, etc.

[EricU]

most of the stuff I do in my shop is made on my metal lathe.  I just expanded it a little so I can get to the woodworking tools a lot better. I have a Diacro bender, so I could do scroll work if I got some dies for it

[CARYinWA]

Here is a bed I made a couple years ago with a metal rail that I welded up and then had power coated.