Big Door & Gate Handles

[David Kailey]

These are 6 handles a customer from Phenix ordered. 4 of them are 14" long and  2 are 28" long. all made from 1" bar stock. The standoffs are made from 3/4" bar. Each bar was cut an 1" longer then needed I drilled the mortise holes, then upset a 1/2" on each end, i ran my 3/8 drift back thru the holes as they got a little deformed during the upsetting. Using a angle grinder w/ a cut off wheel I cut all my lines in for the twist. From there it was just a matter of hot twisting the bars, forging the tenons on the standoffs. I went with my normal 1/2" of material to forge a 3/8" tenon which usually gives me a 1 5/8"ish tenon.......i realized after the first one that i should have adjusted that because they ended up being over 2 1/4" long because usually i am using 1/2" bar and not 3/4" but it was not a big deal to cut them down. 

My daughter Mady helped out drilling, and tapping the standoffs, then peening over the tenons, and using a rivet header she made to give them a more uniform shape. She is a good hand to have around. I showed her how to drill and tap one off the standoffs and she drilled and tapped 12 holes by hand without messing any of them up. Its pretty awsome to see my daughter developing "the feel" that it takes to work with tools. She thought it was "so cool'' to be able to me a threaded hole in steel. I'd have to agree what we do is so cool!!!! 

The customer did not want a mounting plate on the handles. So I drilled a 3/8" hole in the other end of the standoffs opposite the tenon, then on the side facing down when the handle is hung on the door, I drilled and tapped a #3 hole to be tapped for a 1/4" set screw. The customer installed 3/8" rod thru his door and gates and so he can slide the standoffs over the rod and lock them into place using the set screws.... I went with fine thread for a better hold.

The customer is going to have then coated/painted so I left them raw. All total they took me 10 hours.  The 2nd pic is of my poor ginder that finally decided to retire to the trash ben.... 3 years of only using it as a cut off wheel and this project just did it in. I am sure cutting non stop for 3 hours had nothing to do with it..... just its time to go...I am glad tho cause it would get so hot a guy could hardly hold on to it. lol  

 

[ausfire]

Sorry to hear the angle grinder expired. You must have gone through a few discs too!

Those are classy looking handles. Nice reverse twist in the longer ones.

They look like they may be a little uncomfortable on the hands, but I guess the paint (or maybe powder coating)  will soften the edges a bit.

[Daswulf]

Those are some nice handles. Great job getting your daughter learning a great cool skill. 

A friend of mine is pretty meticulous and took his desalt grinders apart to check them and was telling me how the grease they use flings off of the teeth of the gears where it's needed. I honestly forget what he used to improve it. 

[C-1ToolSteel]

I've used my Dewalt angle grinder longer than 3 hours non-stop, and so far, so good. I know what you mean about it heating up, though. I've also seen piles of like thirty Dewalt angle grinders on eBay that were "for parts or repair"...

[Mtnstream]

Great looking handles. Twists and "cubes" look even and perfect....very nice.

[jlpservicesinc]

Very nice handles.. Love seeing the little lady helping out.. Not enough of us girls getting dirty.. 

[WoodnMetalGuy]

Very neat handles. Was not at all obvious to me at first glance how you did that. Thanks for the explanation! I like the contrast between the smooth spirals and the staggered stacks of 'cubes'.

I wonder if a bandsaw cut would work as well, or if you need the little bit additional cut out that the curve of the grinder removes?

-- Dave

[VaughnT]

I'd love to know how you're registering the twists to get the standoffs to line up nice and square to the door.  That's always been my biggest problem when doing twisted handles.   It usually takes me a solid day of cussing and spitting to get the handles so they sit flat on the door.

[David Kailey]

20 hours ago, ausfire said:

Sorry to hear the angle grinder expired. You must have gone through a few discs too!

Those are classy looking handles. Nice reverse twist in the longer ones.

They look like they may be a little uncomfortable on the hands, but I guess the paint (or maybe powder coating)  will soften the edges a bit.

I find that using a flat wired brush and giving the steel a good hard brushing is usually enough to take the edges off, making the handle not as harsh.

6 hours ago, VaughnT said:

I'd love to know how you're registering the twists to get the standoffs to line up nice and square to the door.  That's always been my biggest problem when doing twisted handles.   It usually takes me a solid day of cussing and spitting to get the handles so they sit flat on the door.

So I try very hard to index the mortises as perfact as possible while the steel is hot. But in the picture were my daughter is heading the rivets, you can see I clamp a piece of iron to the table then clamp the standoffs to that piece of steel. I heat up the tenon top and bottom and then upset it. This keeps everything properly indexed, even if my twist is off just a bit the standoffs are tight and perfectly aligned with one another.

8 hours ago, WoodnMetalGuy said:

Very neat handles. Was not at all obvious to me at first glance how you did that. Thanks for the explanation! I like the contrast between the smooth spirals and the staggered stacks of 'cubes'.

I wonder if a bandsaw cut would work as well, or if you need the little bit additional cut out that the curve of the grinder removes?

-- Dave

Bandsaw, hacksaw, sawsall will all work fine. Thereal key is making sure you cutnthe cube lines all the way down to the parallel lines running the length of the steel that is what gives you thenice clean separation, 

11 hours ago, C-1ToolSteel said:

I've used my Dewalt angle grinder longer than 3 hours non-stop, and so far, so good. I know what you mean about it heating up, though. I've also seen piles of like thirty Dewalt angle grinders on eBay that were "for parts or repair"...

I am very happy with the life of that tool its was only $70 and I really do abuse the grinder that gets designated for the cut off wheel, I have5 grinders cause I hate switching discs, so I have a gri der for every disc I use.

[WoodnMetalGuy]

On 4/26/2017 at 0:19 AM, David Kailey said:

Bandsaw, hacksaw, sawsall will all work fine. Thereal key is making sure you cutnthe cube lines all the way down to the parallel lines running the length of the steel that is what gives you thenice clean separation, 

But now that I look closer, I see that it's more than just cutting the slots between the cubes - looks like you have a long slit along the edges of the cubes up the length of the bar - is that right?  Seems like the grinder is the best way to do that.

I wondered how it was that the cube corners stayed vertical vs. spiraling around.  Is that lengthwise slit something like 1/8" deep or do you go deeper than that?

-- Dave

[David Kailey]

5 hours ago, WoodnMetalGuy said:

But now that I look closer, I see that it's more than just cutting the slots between the cubes - looks like you have a long slit along the edges of the cubes up the length of the bar - is that right?  Seems like the grinder is the best way to do that.

I wondered how it was that the cube corners stayed vertical vs. spiraling around.  Is that lengthwise slit something like 1/8" deep or do you go deeper than that?

-- Dave

You can hot chisel it also. An 1/8 inch is good. Oh and yes all 4 sides have a line that is groved with a cut off wheel or chisel

[bobasaurus]

That looks awesome.  Never tried a cube twist before, I might have to give it a go.