The 30 lb Candleholder

On the second day of my welding class at the Crucible, I had to make some sculpture thing from the stuff that we learned. Originally, I wanted to be pretty modest in my ambitions and just make a pencil holder but the welding instructor convinced to try to make something a little more exciting so I made this 30 lb candleholder. The base is made from this piece of 2" high piece of rectangular pipe. On top of that, I arc welded 6 pieces of 1 1/2" square pipe to hold the candles. Those welds came ok pretty well. What you're looking at is the view of one of the two sides with this pattern that I cut out with the acetylene torch. The sides are attached with a couple of spot welds. I was trying to do a weld across the bottom to strengthen the sides being attached to the base but that didn't come out so well. I was having a hard time with the conductivity and lighting up with the arc welding for that. My welding rod either kept on getting stuck to the metal or caught on fire. The sides are still firmly attached though. I doubt they will fall off anytime soon. I spent a lot of time grinding down the metal to clean off the rust, smoothening out all of the sharp edges, grinding off the slag and trying to get a nice shine on the steel but on the way home, I got caught in the rain with my candleholder. The metal got a bit wet and it's already starting to rust again. Oh, well. Not pretty but it was definitely a lot of fun.