peterd51
happy to be here!
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Hi,
some years ago a mate at work bought a weather vane for around £50 and suggested I take a look at it with a view to making and selling them. So I took a few measurements but was put off as I couldn't imaging cutting a number of shapes out of 3mm plate using a jig-saw...
then we started seeing the cheap plasma cutters on ebay. Plus the cost of weather vanes on the net is now anything between £50 & £120...
So late last year I bought the metal needed to make a few, then had problems with the cutter dying but now I'm ready to make some to see how they go.
First one is a birthday present for my brother... he's a Grimsby Town FC fan so it's going to be a GTFC club emblem. It's amost certainly copyrighted and I could never sell these but I reckon we'd get away with a one-off for 'personal' use.
I found the badge on the internet and used Irfanview to print it out about five inches wide, ie, it fits on an A4 sheet. We discussed making and using a pantograph a few weeks ago and I used mine to double the size of the drawing. Then I cut around the outside and cut out parts like the trawler and the three fish. After transferring this to the 3mm plate I cut it out and with a bit of filing it was OK.
The arrow is around 2 foot long and the arrow-head was bought from DC Iron. I tried cutting an arrow out of 6mm plate but it looked awefull. It needs to be reasonable heavy to balance the design at the back end.
Balance was set by tying a piece of string to the badge and while balancing the centre point of the arrow on a bit of 3mm off-cut sticking up in the vice, I slid the string along the shaft until it balanced and I marked the shaft at that point.
I added a section of 5/8" tube, about 8" long and by drilling a hole near one end then opening it out with a grinder it made a slot for the arrow to ride in. After rechecking the balance point I welded up. The tube slips over the top of the pole with a 12mm (1/2") ball-bearing inside (bought from Bearing-Boys.co.uk).
The pole is 12mm (1/2") round and about four feet long, bent to a long 's'. I drilled screw-holes in a piece of 6mm plate and welded in on the bottom to form the wall-plate.
The direction pointers are each 1 foot long, welded to another piece of 5/8" tube. Don't forget the hole with a nut to take a locking bolt! I strengthened the pointers with 8" scrolls and finished off with the 'NSEW', scrolls and letters were also bought from DC Iron.
Painting this one is a bit tricky as it's black and white stripes with white lettering and edging and I'm not much of an artist. Doing one side at a time, I painted the black bits first. Bobbie (the wife) bought me a set of artists brushes for a couple of quid and I set to on the writing. Screwed up the first attempt writing 'Grimby Town FC' but couldn't see what was wrong for some time afterwards!
Fortunately it hadn't dried when I noticed the missing 'S' so it was easy to clean it off with thinners and I tried again. These artists brushes are brilliant. They seem to hold masses of paint and I found I could follow a reasonably good line considering I've always been useless at this sort of thing!
All together there's about four days painting in this one but as weather vanes are generally done in black only I reckon I could paint a number of them with primer and top-coat in a day, dry in 24 hours.
So, I reckon about £18 - £20 in materials and you could knock them up in batches.
Hopefully on the Sunday Market they'd sell for £50 each especially if you could get a visa facility. You'd maybe not sell many, but at that sort of mark-up you'd only need to sell five a day.
Knock out some A5 flyers on the PC with contact number, details of what's avalailable, etc, and offer to make to order, take a £10 deposit, etc. Ordered one Sunday and delivered to the market next Sunday.
Could be an interesting summer until everyone and their dog gets a plasma cutter!
How to make a million pounds between August and Christmas...
get permission from the premiership clubs especially the big ones like Man Utd, Liverpool, Chelsea, etc, to use their motifs and sell 20,000 of each at £70 a time (£20 ? commission to the clubs).
Major problem...how do you make 200,000 weather vanes in four months in a garden garage?
Regards
Peter
some years ago a mate at work bought a weather vane for around £50 and suggested I take a look at it with a view to making and selling them. So I took a few measurements but was put off as I couldn't imaging cutting a number of shapes out of 3mm plate using a jig-saw...
then we started seeing the cheap plasma cutters on ebay. Plus the cost of weather vanes on the net is now anything between £50 & £120...
So late last year I bought the metal needed to make a few, then had problems with the cutter dying but now I'm ready to make some to see how they go.
First one is a birthday present for my brother... he's a Grimsby Town FC fan so it's going to be a GTFC club emblem. It's amost certainly copyrighted and I could never sell these but I reckon we'd get away with a one-off for 'personal' use.
I found the badge on the internet and used Irfanview to print it out about five inches wide, ie, it fits on an A4 sheet. We discussed making and using a pantograph a few weeks ago and I used mine to double the size of the drawing. Then I cut around the outside and cut out parts like the trawler and the three fish. After transferring this to the 3mm plate I cut it out and with a bit of filing it was OK.
The arrow is around 2 foot long and the arrow-head was bought from DC Iron. I tried cutting an arrow out of 6mm plate but it looked awefull. It needs to be reasonable heavy to balance the design at the back end.
Balance was set by tying a piece of string to the badge and while balancing the centre point of the arrow on a bit of 3mm off-cut sticking up in the vice, I slid the string along the shaft until it balanced and I marked the shaft at that point.
I added a section of 5/8" tube, about 8" long and by drilling a hole near one end then opening it out with a grinder it made a slot for the arrow to ride in. After rechecking the balance point I welded up. The tube slips over the top of the pole with a 12mm (1/2") ball-bearing inside (bought from Bearing-Boys.co.uk).
The pole is 12mm (1/2") round and about four feet long, bent to a long 's'. I drilled screw-holes in a piece of 6mm plate and welded in on the bottom to form the wall-plate.
The direction pointers are each 1 foot long, welded to another piece of 5/8" tube. Don't forget the hole with a nut to take a locking bolt! I strengthened the pointers with 8" scrolls and finished off with the 'NSEW', scrolls and letters were also bought from DC Iron.
Painting this one is a bit tricky as it's black and white stripes with white lettering and edging and I'm not much of an artist. Doing one side at a time, I painted the black bits first. Bobbie (the wife) bought me a set of artists brushes for a couple of quid and I set to on the writing. Screwed up the first attempt writing 'Grimby Town FC' but couldn't see what was wrong for some time afterwards!
Fortunately it hadn't dried when I noticed the missing 'S' so it was easy to clean it off with thinners and I tried again. These artists brushes are brilliant. They seem to hold masses of paint and I found I could follow a reasonably good line considering I've always been useless at this sort of thing!
All together there's about four days painting in this one but as weather vanes are generally done in black only I reckon I could paint a number of them with primer and top-coat in a day, dry in 24 hours.
So, I reckon about £18 - £20 in materials and you could knock them up in batches.
Hopefully on the Sunday Market they'd sell for £50 each especially if you could get a visa facility. You'd maybe not sell many, but at that sort of mark-up you'd only need to sell five a day.
Knock out some A5 flyers on the PC with contact number, details of what's avalailable, etc, and offer to make to order, take a £10 deposit, etc. Ordered one Sunday and delivered to the market next Sunday.
Could be an interesting summer until everyone and their dog gets a plasma cutter!
How to make a million pounds between August and Christmas...
get permission from the premiership clubs especially the big ones like Man Utd, Liverpool, Chelsea, etc, to use their motifs and sell 20,000 of each at £70 a time (£20 ? commission to the clubs).
Major problem...how do you make 200,000 weather vanes in four months in a garden garage?
Regards
Peter
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