Odd-ball fab work

In addition to blacksmithing, my dad and I do a little bit of fab work occasionally! ("FAB" = welding) We've been working on our barn/shop continuously since we moved here well nigh three years ago. The barn is 30x60 and the shop addition is 20x60 making the total building, 50 feet wide by 60 feet long with a second story in a little over half of it.
In other words, it is a big building!

In all of this construction, we have mixed/hauled a ton of 80 pound bags of concrete in our wheel-barrow. In consequence, the wheel-barrow frame has "died."

The barrel part itself is in more-or-less decent condition, so it would have been an awful too trash it just because the frame was worn out.
So we decided on a little repair job, estimated at taking a couple hours on the outside! It actually took a little over a day!

 This is the old frame. The tire and barrel are good but everything else needs work!

This is the main reason we had to fix it! This cross-brace broke and so under weight the wheel-barrow might have collapsed. We didn't want a mixed up bag of concrete getting dumped in the middle of the shop.

That shows how pitiful the mass produced metal items are, most of the time. In my line of work I use solid steel or heavy steel piping. This stuff is nothing better than the lowest grade, stamped sheet metal, and the engineering is set up for mass production, NOT long lasting quality! 

Anyway, I've had my "rant and roar!"

This is the barrel; beat up a bit, but still pretty serviceable!

This is the beginning of the frame construction. We are using 1x2-inch tubing as apposed to the the 3/32" stamped sheet steel used in the old frame!

Progress! The tire is added.

"Nuther angle!"

The base pieces are added to the legs.

Next we needed to do something for handles! We have lots of standard pine lumber on hand, but we needed a hardwood that would be stronger. So, we took four pieces of oak from the old barn siding, ran them through the planer, cut them to size, and then nailed them together! After the boards were nailed together, we cut three rings so we could chisel out the hand holds!

Here dad is starting to chisel the handles.

Next, we cut grooves in the corners so that we can make the now square handle into an octagon.

The results!

After we finished the chisel work, we took the the sander and finished the handles nicely.

After we clamped the handles on, we noticed there was a problem with the angle of the wheel-barrow when we picked it up. The handles were placed at the wrong angle so that when we picked them up, anything in the wheel-barrow would want to fall out of the front. So, we had to alter the position of the tire.

This is the position of the tire before the alteration!

This is the position of the tire after the alteration, and this solved the problem.  

 

I had to use the scab to provide strength.

And that is all I have for now. We had to pick up some bolts to attach the handles, so I don't have any pictures of that yet. I also made a hoe today so I will get some pictures of that and post them as well!