Turning some old chains into an eye catching original ornament.
We have got loads of chains in the barn that I wanted to get rid of to give me more room to work on things (yes, that many chains). Some of them are huge, I cant imagine what they used them for when they only had horses for power…some of them are big enough for mooring cruse ships. Anyway I like them so decided to try to use them as ornaments around the house.
I found a suitable place to hang the chains but then how to hang them?
Well I don’t like throwing anything away and I don’t like buying stuff either but I do like using all great old artifacts that the house is full of (others would say junk but not me) and whilst rummaging about this caught my eye…
Just the thing for a bracket to hold rusty old chains; the rusty old teeth of a rusty old mower…but how to fashion them in to something to do the job? Well here is what came up with.
Take off a pair of teeth
Cut them up like Toblerone
Then seperate the parts
Ready to weld
Welded
Looks ok
It was easy to cut the pieces up with an angle grinder and with my lovely new TIG welder I could use the arc to get the metal glowing red to bend out the part that will hold the horizontal hanger bar, hence the blistering on the unwelded part.
I could have cleaned up the welds a bit but decided to leave them be as for me it added to the rustical appeal.
To further this rust themed display I used a piece of re-bar I found lying around the garden as the hanger and oiled the chains lightly with drying oil so they didnt look quite so rusty.
Left Bracket
Right Bracket
Finished with bar
With chains
Its done!
For a couple of hours work it was worth it if only to clear some stuff out of the workshop.
