April 20, 200719 yr I did a basket weave for the first time last night. I forge welded the ends, one piece at a time, building them up. Then did the twist. It was a lot of fun. I've been working on this for a while, but was actually somewhat successful last night. The pictures are a little grainy (cell phone camera). The basket isn't perfect. One of the bars is bent oddly in comparison to the others, but I don't think it's too bad for a first try I wanted to try and show the flaw in the pictures, but I don't think it is very prominent.
April 20, 200719 yr Nice looking basket. I make a passle of basket hooks using the wire left behind from election signs. Easy to weld and makes for a nice small basket. Don't know about up there; but everywhere else I have lived that's just called a basket or basket twist. Basket weave being something very different: taking strap stock and weaving it over/under just like you would do for a white oak basket. Thomas
April 20, 200719 yr Try opening up the twist enough to put a ball bearing inside the twist and retwist, then, you can tell the kids you used 4 elvin smiths to form the ball after it was made. Put a cube in one, 12 sided (what's it called) cube in the next and a ball bearing in the third to show the steps the elves have to use to get to the finished ball. It will leave them scratching their heads.:)
April 21, 200719 yr Hey RC. those are nice looking basket twists. That is one of the things I have been aching to try. cool deal
April 21, 200719 yr Habu? could you please do a blueprint on how to forge a 12 sided thing from a cube? I keep getting them with either 14 or 18
April 21, 200719 yr 6 sides of the cube flatten each of the 8 corners of the cube would give you 14 flats. I guess i never counted them. And I still don't know what to call it... tho if you did not strike 2 of the points you would have 12 flats and a work in progress. Cuboctahedron I looked it up.........:p
April 22, 200719 yr i believe a 14 sided figure is a tetradecagon? I think i need an aspirin now though my head hurts from too much thinking:rolleyes: Sean
October 6, 200817 yr Author You just twist it one way, then untwist it part way. Some sets of instructions say to hit it while untwisting, other people say not to. I found that hitting it can cause it to deform, however it seems to open up more. Some of the ones I have done since this I did not hit, but they did not open up as wide. One thing I found odd, was that the nicest looking one I've done, is with square rod. The ones I've done with round didn't open up as well. I'm currently working on doing a few fire pokers with the basket twist as the handle. However I haven't worked on that project for a while. I've only had a gasser available for a bit, and I like welding in a coal forge better then a gasser.
October 6, 200817 yr When opening a basket twist you may have to tweak it with pliers, screw driver, etc. to keep everything even. The last thing to do after all the rods are even is cool most of them and bend one hot one open enough to drop in a marble or shiney steel bearing, dice, etc. then close it up. Frosty
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