Picket Twister

[Weldfab]

Here is a picket twister I built for a customer. Started out as an old lathe bed I picked up and a used gear reduction drive
with a reversable motor. Made a spud to hold a 1/2" square die from my iron worker and a receiver to hold the oposite end.
Then you just simply stepped on the foot switch and started twisting. I even welded 4 pieces of 1/4" hot rolled bar together
and made wrought iron rope. Worked great and not to hard to build.

Dave

 

[Tony Wells]

Good idea. Do the twists stay consistent along the length? I've wondered about building one of those myself.

 

[Weldfab]

Good idea. Do the twists stay consistent along the length? I've wondered about building one of those myself.

Tony,

Yes it stays very consistent and believe it or not you can untwist it and it goes back to being reasonably straight. Another thing is most of the scale
falls right off while twisting, nice for painting later

Dave

 

[irishwoodsman]

wow that is so cool:biggrin:

 

[Old Iron]

You would think that by twisting the bar would get shorter, But it stays the same length that you started with.

Paul

 

[Kennyd]

No heat involved? That is pretty cool!

 

[Weldfab]

That is correct there is not heat, they twist up cold and it always amazes me how good it works.

 

[Tony]

Nice design! I may have to license that one

Sure beats my bruit force method of using 2 big adjustable wrenches on one end and a vice on the other.

From what I under stand the secret to getting an even twist is to have the bar at an even temperature across the length of the twist. That's why I've done it cold in the past. You can use that to you creative advantage. With a little practice you can get some nice looking uneven(organic looking) twists by applying temperature gradient with a torch. Gotta be quick though.

Have you ever tied to do something like this?


My wife wants these on our deck railing.