Welding Tips and Tricks

I just made another trailer hitch ornament for an actual paying customer. Woohoo, my first sale of a metal sculpture ever!
Cheers.
-Eldon

I can see those in my future for the mother in law. Not as hitches. Which bit of the trailer hitch is it? The nut?

Bolts in place of the ball when it's not being used. I guess one could use one of these to go all medieval on someone but being the civilized bunch we are, we would never consider such a thing...

Ah, who am I kidding? I think those types of thoughts every day lol
Cheers.
-Eldon

I'm with you now. I remember when you used to see a cut tennis ball on the ball to keep the grease on.

I see guys with Chevy, Ford, and Mopar emblems and various other things on their receiver hitches and since I live in the desert, I thought "Why not cactus?"
Now I need to make El Chupacabra!
Cheers.
-Eldon

Why not. As long as you remember to take it off before dropping your tailgate.

I measured on my dad's truck and it has just a hair over 9 inches between the open tailgate and the receiver hitch. The cactus I made him is 8.75 so it's close but doesn't hit. The one I just made is about a half inch shorter than the first.
Cheers
-Eldon

Good move. I think a lot of people over here dont check, because you see a lot of dented tail gates.

Looks nice eldon. How did you make it? What was the base?

It's just scrap tubing. I cut little pie wedges out of the arms then bent them to shape. The base is a 3/4 inch bolt with the head ground round to fit in the bottom. Then I welded the arms on and ran a lot of fairly cold stringer beads. The flange thing at the bottom in the photo is just some random bracket I stuck it in to hold it while I painted it.
Cheers.
-Eldon