Free pipe bender FTW!
 

My wife wanted a wine bottle tree and I told her I would make one for her. Before I got started she ordered a cheap one online for about $25:

http://www.collectionsetc.com/images...arge_12945.jpg

It is cheap and flimsy so I went to the scrap metal yard and bought some rebar. I wanted to follow the pattern of the tree she bought but I was having a hard time bending the rebar so I bought one of these $90 + tax pipe benders from HF yesterday:

http://images.harborfreight.com/cpi/...2899/32888.gif

I ended up paying $77 for it after tax and a 20% off coupon yesterday. Later that night I sold an old 8MM camcorder for $75 to a guy on Craigslist. So, I guess it wasn't free but $2 still isn't bad. One step closer to having a Geo Metro go cart / rail buggy <G>. I've bent the main trunk and will probably start welding on the limbs tonight. Pretty cool toy...

I dropped so many of those pipe benders and junk when I worked at HF. I bet the boxes were busted up pretty good. :giggle:

Have fun with your projects.

Yes, the box was ripped all to hell.

Cool, trash in your yard!

Empty wine bottles in front, transmissions in back!

hey, that silly trash art shit sells! I had my eyes open by my buddy who had scrap farm metal lying around, welded up a large flower thing made from rebar and horse shoes, sprayed water on it to let it rust up, and clear coat spray paint... sold it for $250 on craigslist, spent about $5 on the paint. Another time, he went and got a clitche "lone cowboy" silohouette laser cut into a 10-guage steel plate for $50, got a 12" long piece of box tubing, halves of horse shoes, and welded together a rustic hat-hanger, with "fancy" grinder marks and hammer dings of course. Sold for $200.

We had about 30 Miata people at my house the day I bought the rebar. Must have had 10 of them tell me they would buy a wine tree if I made them one. Too much work involved (if you are a perfectionist like me) to sell them for any profit.

Recycle bins are free in my neck of the woods. :)

Turn that pipe bender upside down and you have the 6 ton HF shop press.

Frank

Gfs dad owns a machine shop, when he gets bored he makes little animal things. They have a "pig" made out of a 15" diameter 90* air duct bend. I've tried to convince him that people go crazy for that stuff and to stick some on ebay. He never listens.

wtf

who would put apples from a real tree and ruin them by putting them on a rusty fake tree?

Its a Darwin tree, any dumb ass who would eat an apple off it, gets lock jaw and dies, should die anyways.

I guess you snobs (or is it anti-snobs ???) can't appreciate it but here is the finished product:


http://www.lightweightmiata.com/projects/winetree/

http://www.lightweightmiata.com/proj...winetree09.JPG

It is a little hard to see in this picture. I need to drink 12 more bottles of wine to fill the rest of the tree.

http://www.lightweightmiata.com/proj...winetree10.JPG