After some use, I realized that having the helping-hand tool so close to me while working was annoying, so I took the cutting torch to another spot towards the back of the 3/4" plate. My workspace now has two hardy-holes, the rear one that'll likely keep the helping-hand in place full-time, and the front one that I'll keep free unless I need to do some shaping.

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I've been looking for some chunks of metal with interesting curves to use to shape sheet metal. There's a local metal scrapyard that has an odd assortment of things coming in every day, and I figured I'd probably find something interesting.


I found this odd thing. I have no clue what it is, but I know that it spins inside that casing.


I also noticed that it has a 1.25" square hole on both ends, which makes it convenient to mount onto a shaft that'll fit into the hardy hole on my steel slab.


The casing comes off, giving me some more edges and angles that I can shape sheet metal around.


The casing itself has some great curves on the inside that'll be useful.


This should satisfy my need for metal for a while.

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I spent about 20 minutes today building some additional tools for my metal-slab workbench.


This is a ball swage. It's literally a 2" trailer hitch ball welded on top of 1" square tubing. I'll use this to create rounded shapes in the metal.


Because I'm often working with small pieces of metal, having a tight corner is very useful. This tool allows me to bend metal around a 90-degree angle, and also lets me bend the metal around a 1" tube.


Keep in mind that I'm not hammering on these tools like you would on an anvil. I work exclusively with sheet metal, so I'm only tapping on the metal to shape it. The 1" square tubing is more than strong enough to handle what I'm doing with the sheet metal.

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Last week, I put some time into upgrading my workspace, and one of my upgrades was the construction of a "helping hand":



As useful as the helping hand tool was, I noticed its limitations immediately. The swinging arm had a full 360-degree range of motion, but no matter what position it was in, I couldn't easily get to the back of any piece of metal that I was welding. An upgrade to my upgrade was needed.

Here's version 2.0:



This helping hand has four separate joints!


This is the main pivot arm.


This is an "elbow" of sorts, that gives me the ability to place the workpiece wherever I want it on my welding surface.


This joint is analogous to a wrist, and allows me to point the workpiece in any direction, either facing me or away from me.


On the same joint as the wrist is a secondary joint that rotates the clamp along the vertical plane.

And here's a little video of the helping hand in action:



All of this was put together with some 1" square tubing, a 220v stick welder, and a few nut/bolt assemblies. Not bad. Very useful.

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