Welding Tips and Tricks

Once again another small project, this one much more labor intensive than I originally thought. Its a coat rack made from horseshoes. The majority of the work was in laying the horseshoes into the board. But this isn't a woodworking forum, it's for welding! So here's a few pictures, turns out after everything is mounted you can't see the welds. The next one I make I'll position everything so you can see them.

neat idea
hope the horses don't mind going bare foot

winter coming and now barefoot horses.

Nice rack

Very innovative. Looks good and practical too!

It did take a little practice to figure out how i wanted the inside welded. But over all I got some good practice in.

I've been wondering...what material are horseshoes made of? Ductile iron, steel, or..?
Thanks.
-Eldon

These particular ones are, as far as I can tell, mild steel. In starting this I've found out there are steel, cast iron, and aluminum. There may be more but this is all I've found. I currently have mostly steel and a handful of aluminum.