Project: Baby Wheelbarrow

Before I tell about this project, I have a confession to make.  It's something I'm not proud of and is an area I want to actively improve in:

I grind my welds.

I know it doesn't sound like a big deal, but  the fact is that I know people that strike an arc and leave beautiful little rivulets of newly-formed metal in their wake.  I'm a fair hand with a MIG welder, but when I stick weld, it looks more like what my chickens leave all over their roost.  Most of the problem is just inexperience, but it doesn't help that I have terribly unsteady hands.  I've noticed that my technique is 100% better when I'm working with the back half of the stick.

So I grind them.  I'm sorry.

Now then, about the project.  Almost a year ago, Kaylee noticed a tiny little wheelbarrow hanging out near the house of our friends Willy and Eli, just a stone's throw away, here on campus.  It looked rusty and beat up and the wheel was broken.  She thought it would be fun for the girls to use, since they were making a little cash (from me) by picking up fallen mangoes, and encouraged me to talk to them about it.

As it was, after I cut off the broken wheel and axle

I asked Willy about it and he said that he had found it out and about and had grabbed it to fix up for the kids.  He said that I could take it.  Well, with the busyness of the school year and the other projects that I've had to do, combined with the quality of my welding, I kept putting it off until this week.  It's mango season again and it would be the last opportunity for Lydia to use it, because it is so small!

I found a new wheel in the hardware market a couple weeks ago and finally got to work on it this week. 

It's actually in better shape than I originally thought.  As I gave it the wire wheel treatment, I realized 2 things:  that it actually had very little rust (just funky paint) and that it was obviously made locally.

The biggest problem is that I wanted it to sit level, so I decided to cut the struts off the front and weld the axle directly to the frame.  However, the frame is a very thin-walled pipe and the axle is a piece of 5/8" bolt. Not an easy job!

My awesome welding station.  The key is to not drop molten steel into your boots. ;)

See, I told ya.  I grind my welds.

I made a terrible mess of the first side and ended up patching up quite a bit of the pipe that I burned out.  I learned my lesson, though, and the other side went lickety-split!

I painted it green and black and turned it over to the 4-year old: