I started my welding class on April 1st, and we’re already down to the last two classes.  I decided to work on a sign for our chicken coop.  I came up with a design and put it into cad so I could scale it as I needed and make revisions easily.  After tracing the individual pieces of the chicken and nest onto 16 gauge steel, I cut them out using a plasma cutter.

Then I welded the wings to the body, the egg to the nest background, and then polished these pieces.  I needed to grind down some rough welds, so I figured it didn’t hurt to give a few of the pieces a different finish.

Next, I welded the pieces of the head together – a little challenging with some of the small sizes.

I built the legs using rebar scraps, and bent them using the pipe bender in the shop, and trimmed them to size using the chop saw.  I ground down the rough edges with a wheel grinder.

I used an oxyacetylene torch to give some coloration to body and wings, and love how the color turned out of the tail.  This was a very cool tool to use – I guess you can even cut using other attachments.

During last week’s class, I started bending rusty nails and welding them to the nest.  I tried to push out the welding wire a little longer than usual to get extra little pieces to stick in with the nails – intentionally sloppy.

Next week I need to cut the lettering out of the 3/16″ steel plate that will form the back of the sign using the plasma cutter, and cut it to size.  Then I just have to finish welding more nails onto the nest, and weld everything to the sign.