hey everybody adam savage here in my
cave with a
new one-day build ah and it involves a
tool
i am making a tool today you might not
have thought of it as a tool but
now that i've mentioned that it's a tool
you will always think of it that way
during the shelter in place uh my wife
mrs don't try this has been spending a
lot of time tending
to uh our succulent garden we have a
tiny little deck in our house
it's a place of great relaxation for us
and it is surrounded by succulents
and in the tending to succulents it
turns out you don't want to just pour
water over them
uh you actually want to put water right
in their base so you want a
a watering can that has a nice precise
spout
that can get to the uh the base of the
succulents
now her birthday is coming up it may
have already long passed by the time you
see this video
but in this point in time her birthday
is about a week away and so i thought i
would
make my wife a watering can
for tending to our succulents and i'm
going to do it
using some sheep brass and some
engineering brass and all of my brass
soldering
braising sanding machining techniques
will come
into play during this build and it's the
kind of thing i've been excited about
doing for a while
and i've just been trying to come up
with the right project to execute
a lot of brass construction and this is
it
so the first step is to come up with a
design and i have a
nice big piece of unsullied corrugated
cardboard to do some drawings on and
then we'll go from there
all right i have basically uh
figured out the rough structure here
i've been looking at a lot of flower uh
flower pots sorry not flower pots
watering cans and this is a very basic
design uh got a long spout with a curve
that is above the top water level of the
can so water won't leak out
a nice handle for being able to pour and
i may make that handle thicker at some
point along its journey
so that it's comfortable a fill spout
which does not need to be covered
uh some support here for supporting the
long spout
and i may actually make this spout out
of many pieces of stepped
engineering brass um k s engineering
brass which i have a full rack of
telescopes so each piece telescopes into
its predecessor
and uh into its successor so uh
i might try and get a really graceful
curve
now this is a sort of a planned view and
sorry an elevation view of what i'm
thinking of
but i'm not positive this is what i how
i want the shape to go
i know i want the body of this to be
oval but
look on a thing like this order of
operations is everything and
aesthetically
while this is close to what i want it's
not perfect so i'm going to let the
actual
uh uh design i'm going to let the
construction guide the design
the most difficult part of this build is
this spout so that's where i'm going to
begin i'm going to begin with the spout
and once i have that done then i'm going
to make the handle and once i have those
two things done i'm going to figure out
a shape of a
can that joins those two in holy
matrimony
um so i think it's time to break out
bend and deal with a whole bunch of
brass tubing
uh normally in a sequence like this we'd
have a shot in the beginning of the
sequence of me pulling out the brass but
i forgot
to get that so actually it's almost just
as important
to show me putting away the breast i'm
shooting right yeah i'm actually filming
okay
so it's almost just as important to show
me putting away the brass because
these kns retail racks um
were for me it was like finally growing
up
uh to get these because this is
i always dreamed of having these in my
shop
for 30 years i've wanted to have such a
thing in my shop
and when you have something like this
where each one is precise
and placed in a specific location and i
know i've got some other detritus around
here somewhere
it's really really important that they
all go back to the right place
otherwise why have organization so here
we go
here are ones i did not use so i think
that one
i have my spout
look at that isn't that lovely tapered
and all it is
all i did to do this was i slowly bent
pieces of brass tubing and then cut out
just the bend part
using my portable band saw and then
threaded them all together so you can
see the steps quite clearly here but
from here
it just looks like a nice delicate
flower
flower watering can spout i am super
happy with that
so i'm laying that on my design here uh
and now
you can see it's slightly different it's
longer and bigger than i had planned
which is fine
now it's time to bend this part the
handle
and i have some solid brass rod for that
uh and
that's what i'm gonna do next bending
metal
regularly into um nice looking curves
is not easy
but it's not that hard either
it just takes a kind of a really
steady attention to detail and
a willingness to keep on going in and
fixing what you've screwed up i mean
i remember one of the first jobs i took
as a young maker was
to make a uh a set of steel coat hangers
for
a bridal gown place in hayes valley and
oh man i mean i bent so much steel for
that but
there's a way in which after you've bent
a certain amount of it
being able to make a curve flow is
really
satisfying and honestly i've gotten my
training on things like coat hangers
right like
just trying to get a nice gentle bend
out of a coat hanger
is the same thing as trying to get a
gentle bend out of a piece of steel
so there's lots of places in which you
can practice
so what i'm doing here is i'm kind of
just applying the first
curve and trying to make it really
regular i'm moving the rod about a half
an inch each time i'm
applying about the same amount of a
bounce force and i'm kind of trying to
keep the physicality
just consistent enough because
i want to try and get a steady curve
first after i've got it steady
then i'll make it match the curve that
i've drawn
the other thing that i've done for
strength is i've actually
nested two tubes inside each other and
that means this is a much more
rigid structure than it would be if it
was just one layer of tubing
that's a nice end run around having to
go find a thicker piece of tubing
right now it's way too big for my flower
pot
but i really like this curve and i've
got enough to work with in here
so that i think that i can start to i
can start to
sharpen it in certain places and see if
i can't get
a curve that i like to be my um
to be my valentine i i mean and in this
again i'm not trying to match perfectly
to the drawing i'm trying to get
something that's aesthetically
interesting and then
i will get the pot to match it once i'm
yeah so again i'm just moving it in
small small increments really it's the
accretion of many small
actions as how to bend tubing or steel
to the shape that you want and for a
good portion of the time you're doing it
it's going to feel like you're doing it
wrong yeah see
like that's too sharp of a bend and
that's kind of a mistake but
it might be one that i can work with
because it comes out of the end of this
yeah see i think i can
yeah i just have to all right so at this
point in the process i tend to start to
give myself some reference marks
um just so i kind of know where i am
and then i know where i want a sharper
bend
so and again keeping it level so your
curve always happens on one plane i mean
that's what's so great about a
hospital bender right it keeps
everything on the exact same plane
but this is now
all about just slowly moving through
there we go that's nice and now i'll go
to
here
and again can't check too many times
it's just about
slowly
making it what you want it to be and
each time you see a part that you're
like oh that bend could be a little more
even you can even it out by
giving it a little goose in the middle
that's what you do
and when you have a overall curve you
grab both ends and kind of
gentle it outwards and
i the main thing i want to say about
bending tubing
is that while you're doing it it's going
to feel like you're doing it wrong
right now this is garbage like this is
making me nuts
but i know i can get it where i want it
to go and also i've given myself some
extra at the end so don't ever cut too
close
to you need bending room
and there's this way in which you can
get into this move bend move
bend move bend and it's almost like a
physical dance
and then you look up and you're like oh
that's really nice and by the way
this is a nice marker that i'm staying
on a very specific plane
i'm only about half the width of the
brass off at this point
um that's great that tells me i'm on the
right track
also having two nested tubes is um
that's helping me maintain
uh not buckle the brass when you're
bending thin
tubing it's always possible to buckle it
for instance if you look very carefully
along the line here
you can i think you might be able to see
that there are these little buckles and
that's just
sometimes impossible to not end up with
it's just the more the more tiny bends
you do the less of those buckles you'll
have
things like brass tubing sometimes it's
impossible to avoid but
all right we're going to come in here
the way you get good at this is just
practicing
you know i did so much of almost all of
my early
metal work for higher was using quarter
inch
hot roll steel rod and that stuff
bends very easily uh it was easy to fit
in my car because i would just show up
to the lumber yard with a bunch of bolt
with a pair of bolt cutters and i
cut it into the lengths that fit in my
volvo
and now i'm crossing over itself which
is fine i just want to get the line
right
i'll worry about turning it to size
later but i have a sharp bend here
and i want to get it right oh yeah it's
coming along nicely okay so we're
following up to here
and then i can start to come in a little
sharper
and you get to know your bender and you
get to know the material
the more you bend it and it's just again
it's practice
so my recommendation to get good at this
is like find some old
pieces of steel rod and just start
trying to get them in the shape that you
want actually again
coat hanger just a coat hanger is
fantastic practice
uh oh oh this is this is nice
okay so yeah it feels good too
ladies and gentlemen yeah
yeah that's good okay so i'm going to
overcut it here by an inch and i'm going
to over cut it here by an inch
um right you should see this so here is
my rough drawing uh
that's the body that's the last part
that i'm building here's the spout
which probably is going to go like that
and then here's the handle i just spent
and i know this
yeah so what i did was this mark right
here
was my reference mark for the side of
the vessel
and then i can actually make this handle
a little bigger or smaller
as i want but first up i'm going to cut
it here
i'm going to cut it here that gives me a
little more ability to see because these
two pieces
uh they're just now getting in my way
and it's time to cut them
now i've got my curve i've got the
handle here and i like it but
it has a little bit of um unevenness
here on the outside and i want to try
and just
make that a little more regular i i want
an aesthetic feeling out of that that
i'm not quite getting
so i'm going to use my anvil and a
chasing hammer here
kind of do a little bit of uh of
refinement on this curve
i'm really pretty happy i was able to
use a uh
a sand a a nice fine sanding belt
to well let's see i used the hammer to
to to
even out the highs and lows then i used
the uh scotch brite
belt and the sanding belt to further
even those out because i have two layers
of brass because i have a nice thick
brass wall there
i was able to actually make this
entirely smooth
all the way around now i'm going to do
some more work on this with some
sandpaper
because the mark of great mark of
craftsmanship sometimes is the lack of
witness marks sometimes it's the
visibility of witness marks but for me
right now i want to take away some of
those
we're going well uh i've got the handle
which i've removed most of the marks
from
and i've got the spout which still has
to be silver soldered together
next up is to start flushing out
the body of this thing and for that
i've got some i think this
is o2o or 030
brass sheet and i'm going to uh
yeah i think i'm going to cut some
strips that are
about as wide as my
as my drawing is tall here because i
think that's about
the size i'm looking for and
the next step is to cut out a long set
of strip
and maybe even uh silver solder the two
strips together
so i can get a full round i wish i had a
longer piece of brass but i do not it's
12 inches square is what i got so i got
to make that work
i have the brass that will be the body
of my watering can
laid out here one sheet over
the other and i have some one two three
blocks weighing it down i've put a
straight edge across so i know
that i'm making a part that is aligned
with itself
and i'm going to be using stay clean
silver solder
to put this all together um jamie
taught me about this stuff years ago
it's just really really
uh robust it's a lovely lovely product
it's one of my favorites
there we go yeah i gotta lead it that's
it
mckinnon i'm also you know i'm bending
this without a roller and i'm kind of
doing it using the same
philosophy i am with the with the
strip sorry with the rod which is i'm
just slowly making bends and seeing how
they're
how they're working and i'm slowly kind
of
dialing it into what i like
we have here are the rudiments
of a watering can right right
and then on the other side
right
this makes me so freaking happy i've so
wanted to make one of these things for
so
forever okay
can you tell that i'm excited um i now
have
the body of my of my watering can
and it is soldered together and it
doesn't look like crap
so i'm so far pleased next
is to do let's see here
next is to do the top and the well next
is to kind of adjust this until i really
like it
and then clean it all out make sure it's
really nice and
clean from all the goop and gunk and
everything
and to make sure that i believe that it
is totally watertight which i believe it
is
then i'm going to put a top and a bottom
on it now the bottom is going to be
thicker material
um and i think i'm also going to run a
border around both sides yeah
i think that's that's something that i
want to do here i think it'll look
really nice if i
do after i get the top and bottom on
then i'm gonna go in
and do the uh
the spout
10.
i have uh i have silver soldered the
bottom on with a border
it seems to have filled in quite nicely
i'm quite pleased
best of all it is holding water
yes it is holding water so that's the
biggest deal this is the bottom
um what i'm now going to do is on the
band so i'm going to trim this down all
the way around and then
finish it on the belt sander do a little
bit of
final work and we should be able to
bring this puppy home
yeah um it's going really
provisionally well
so
this makes some good sounds
hold on
we are we're preceding a pace
we have a body we have a bottom we have
a border
all of this is going quite well it's now
time for me to
silver solder the spout to heal versus
solder the spout
yeah because the next thing is to put
the sprout in
and i want to have access to the inside
to put the spout in that's important to
me
oh
this is my spout
i'm a little teapot short and stout
over there is my handle this is the
spout now you can see i've got some um
some artifacts of the soldering here uh
i will take care of those i've also got
some bumps i want to take care of but i
can't go too far
so i'm going to use my belt sander here
to kind of bring it home
so
so
the sprout is going to go here
and yeah i kind of want to do the sprout
before i put the top on
that's the front yep that's the front
and the spout's got to be higher than
the
yeah than the water level and then i'm
also going to put in a support but
the sprout's going to go right there and
it's gonna be
yeah it's gonna be right there's
only one bit that can drill the hole
that i need in here right now
and that's this
this is a step drill
and instead of a normal twist drill
which pulls itself into the material
the step drill scrapes the material out
of the way it's perfect for
flat materials like flat acrylic flat
metal flat plastic
yeah step drills get the a set of step
drills and life will be good
i'm also working with a step drill that
is this hot that's
biggest dimension is exactly the
dimension of my fattest pipe which is
great
i am going to start straight in but then
i'm going to angle it so it fits the
pipe
and i believe if i come in here right
like this
all right i'm through now the trick is
to angle this because i want this to be
become soft like this so it's a fairly
steep angle so i'm going to come in
oh yeah
need a batter step drill actually uh
these are actually
three pieces of a set from irwin um
full disclosure they sent me this set
i'm liking it a lot
it's totally great yeah this high end
yeah still got some ways to go
ladies and gents yep
okay so uh now i want to extend this
up this way and that is a job
for a dremel or a handheld rotary tool
as it were
it's looking good i i like that join i
like how that join
looks
around the outside there we go so it's
that
so it's time for soldering in
the uh the spout
and again making sure that it is leak
proof
um so i'm gonna be putting it over here
and over here i'm gonna have a stand of
some one two three blocks
that will hold up the spout yeah and
i'll have one in here
there we go this is great
now this is the tricky part i gotta
heat it on the outside get the solder on
the inside and i got to get it all the
way around because i need a seal
ah
i might have gotten it holy cow
that okay i might have actually achieved
what i was trying to do
i have successfully added a top border
um i did that by uh taking this thin
piece of brass uh clamping it
so that it was exactly the size of the
main body of my watering can and then
soldering it and then
pressuring the ring over the top of the
sorry i did this off camera i had a
visitor and i forgot the camera wasn't
running
occasionally that happens but i now have
soldered the inner lip
of this upper piece all the way around
and uh the next thing i'm gonna do about
the
bodywork is solder that on top of that
and then trim it back but first
i have to do some work on how the handle
attaches to all this stuff yeah that's
the
next deal is the handle
yeah so first things first on the handle
front well
i'm going to cool this down in the sink
and then i'm going to drill a hole for
the handle and put it in
uh and once that's in and roughly and
you know i i have to get this on and i'm
going to have a fill ring that i'm going
to make for this
and i have an idea about that too
we are making progress uh
i have the body with the bottom ring
and the top ring it's all waterproof
i've got the spout
it's a good join the handle back is
joined
now the top of the handle is floating
and that will of course
get addressed when i put the top on but
i need to make the fill hole for the
look at how nice that glows inside
oh it's very high guy um
now it's time for me to cut a nice big
fat hole out of the brass how am i gonna
do that
that is a great question i'm going to
start
by double stick taping it to this big
piece of one inch plywood
and then i'm going to use this big hole
saw nice and slow
and hopefully that will get me where i
want to go
cutting big holes in thin sheet material
always a thing
always a dealy bob um
but uh i have grown to really like the
double stick tape
over the last few weeks yeah kovit has
taught me how great double stick tape is
for securing things
while you are working on them
that actually worked out better than i
thought it would uh that came out just
gorgeously and it was i probably i had
the spindle turning a little too fast
but it went
and just like cut it and now i have this
nice circle of brass
which will go into the brass drawer um i
thought it was going to turn on the
lathe a little border around this
but i don't have any brass stock that's
like two and a half inches wide so
i'm going to bend this to be that
yeah we're gonna do a little more
bending
all right so there was something that
happened uh
as i was attempting to solder the ring
into what will be the top of my
watering can i got it almost perfect
and then if you watch the time lapse at
this very moment
i heated up so much the metal buckles
and the ring pops out
losing the work that i had just done so
uh i had to take the ring
clean off the solder clean out the
inside of the hole and redo it
um yeah this is good ticklish work
it you gotta what you'll notice on this
whole build is that every single step
i'm taking i'm kind of creeping up on
i'm not
going whole hog i'm not trying to do too
much at once and that's something i've
learned about brass construction like
this is that
you've really got to go slow yeah you
got to kind of
order of operation is slow um
but this looks really good i'm going to
do some sanding and finishing on the top
of this and then figure out where the
hole for
this guy goes and then he'll spells
margaret
we'll have the main body pretty much
done what
well that was great
yeah i've gotta i it's not gonna stay
square i'm gonna cut it out and then i'm
gonna sand it down so it all looks like
i knew what i was doing
this is shaping up quite nicely i got to
get a little bit of uh
solder in there in that action now it's
time to clean this puppy up
still a ways to go but yeah i'm really
getting pleased
nice oh almost almost come on
that's it yep
i still haven't figured out where i want
to sign this i don't want to do any
etching on it
that i'm weirdly clear about but i do
want to figure out how to sign it
foreign
lots of elbow grease later i have
something that looks
for all the world like a real object uh
this looks like a genuine
watering can which it is
but now the question is
this is the basic form i kind of want
to personalize it and so i'm thinking
about maybe
spelling my wife's name here
but maybe that's a little bit like maybe
she doesn't want to water the can like
i'm looking at my name while i'm
watering my plants look at my name
maybe that's lame um
maybe i just make a little banner here
that says happy birthday
maybe that's what i do and then i'll
sign it on the bottom here
it um i will say i've been looking for a
project to make out of brass for a long
time and
that this began this morning as
some k s engineering brass and some
flat sheets of brass and uh
eight hours later i've got something
like this
um it's pretty cool i'm pretty
freaking psyched um
and still a little ways to go but i am
uh
yeah i really like it
i have come up with the proper
personalization here it's going to go
right
there yep see that nice and tasteful
it's not like crowing about itself
happy birthday it says happy birthday
a little bit hand-hewn makes me very
happy so
i'm gonna get some solder under there
and some flux on there and heat it up
and let it
wick in here we go
so
so uh what just happened there well
the fact is i thought i was done and i
was starting to polish
it and i filled it full of water and i
had a leak so i took care of that leak
and then i had another leak then i took
care of that leak then i had another
leak and i've spent
the last two hours chasing leaks and i
finally just
ran a little b to jb weld on the
underside of the top because
uh i didn't have enough uh surface to
edge to edge contact that that was an
issue however it should be plenty strong
given the way i've got it currently set
up uh and i'm gonna let it sit
overnight and i'm gonna come back in
tomorrow and fix it you can see how
sweaty i am that was
that was a lot of work um when i'm going
through
stuff like this i'm chasing leaks and i
think i'm done but i'm not quite done
i've been doing this long enough that i
don't get really bent out of shape about
it
but it's not fun it's it's boring it's
exhausting it's
concerning but this is the moment at
which you got to just sort of knuckle
under and
kind of keep on tackling it finally
chase it
get rid of it find another league chase
it get rid of it find another league
just keep on doing that eventually
you're done
hopefully tomorrow morning i'll be done
well
hours of chasing leaks later
i think the main bulk of my watering can
is done
structurally it's totally sound
you can hear that there's no more
rattling
you know my biggest problem was not
enough edge to edge
contact here i was using brass that was
too
thin so i supported it with jb weld
it may fail in the future if it does i
will wrap
this around here and do another solder
joint to
strengthen that joint but for right now
i think it's actually pretty robust
next i would like to make it easier to
hold
so i'm gonna look into doing some
leather wrapping around the handle here
i have a nice long piece of leather here
yeah that's a good
six feet long i think i can get a nice
wrap lace out of it that's like half an
inch wide but i gotta straighten it out
a little bit first
so just a little bit of surgery on this
hide
it's a nice veg tan hide so it'll take
whatever color i apply to it
really well
half inch
making a better leather strap cutter
that's definitely a one day build i want
to do
i have i have issues with all of them
okay so let's see here let's make a
little slice to begin with
yep that is the sharp edge all right
here we go
now i may need more leather than this
but let's just see
let's just see what i can achieve here
and just see what it feels like i may
need to do a thicker strand
you know there's all sorts of questions
here
hopefully i'll be able to get a fair bit
around this bend
i don't want to have to sew two pieces
of leather together or glue them
together
i'd rather not but i will if i have to
i like how this is looking
i may add some glue to the underside to
make this a much more positive join
but as
it stands you know what i also might do
is make a thicker lace
i certainly have the leather to go
a little bit wider but i can't make it
longer so
if i'm overlapping to the same degree
every time
i think it's going to continue to be the
same length but
again let's see
how far we get i'm getting excited so
i'm getting sloppy but
i had no idea it would reach around this
far usually when you're wrapping
something
you lose so much length in
the multiplication of pi
yeah but this
is wrapping quite nicely
and to be honest i think
it's gonna be perfect as a length
um i think what i'm gonna do is
yeah we're gonna carry it all the way to
the bottom
of the leather lace
there we are okay so there's that
and that right there
that feels great that feels really
really lovely
i'm really happy with this i have
learned a lot and
i want to say you know there's times in
this video when i was talking about like
soldering brass together you want to get
this you don't want to get that
um and i was thinking you have no right
to pretend to be an authority on this
you're just figuring it out as you go
and
this is true i have both done a lot of
brass manufacturing using silver solder
and
they're still crap tons i am learning on
the fly
like if you're going to have a
structural join like the top of this
you really need to make sure it's
supported with some
surface area and i didn't have enough
surface area and that's
kind of one of the reasons i ended up
chasing leaks on this thing
because the the silver solder
is not mechanically strong enough uh
under certain circumstances uh using
very thin brass
and again it's just like every material
has its own rules and its own
proclivities and you have to both work
with them and work around
all of those rules and proclivities so
after all of that after chasing leaks
for a couple of hours and
letting this thing sit overnight i i
feel like it is a done deal
i'm really pleased um i thought i shot a
time lapse of me installing this but
apparently i hadn't pushed record
but i ended up supporting the front
so the the back end of my leather handle
is glued there with barge glue and
that's
a nice looking beginning to that seam
and then when i came all the way around
here this is the part that would receive
kind of the most abuse in addition to
gluing it i wrapped some fine
brass wire i had around the end of that
and secured it underneath with a little
drop of crazy glue
and it is um you can hear it
it's monolithic there's no like rattling
there's no
you know some sort of yeah that would
tell you so uh
it is complete and finished and ready to
wrap
and give to my partner uh save
for the dedication yeah that's gonna
i'm going to inscribe it right now
what did i write that's between me
and my wife thank you very much for
joining me for this one day build
i am super happy with it i feel really
i feel like it's an achievement i feel
like it's a a step up for me and my
my working with brass and my making of
tools thank you guys for joining me on
this
and i will see you next time
hey everyone adam savage here in my cave
and we are living through a completely
strange moment in time six months ago
the entire world changed everyone went
into lockdown
and so did tested we became a virtual
workplace almost
overnight and now i see all my
colleagues almost exclusively
on video chat i am shooting only on the
phone i know the sound quality has
gotten worse
norm joey and gunther are all editing
from home
and maybe the biggest change is output
we have radically increased the number
of videos that we make because
well that's what i'm doing all week long
here is just shooting everything on my
phone
and eventually the world will return to
normal but one of the things we want to
keep
up is the pace of videos that we've been
releasing
we've been ecstatic about your feedback
about this
and we want to keep it going but in
order to we need to ask for your direct
support and so i'm here today to
announce
tested channel membership if you're not
interested in becoming a member that's
fine
tested is not going to change for you
you still get all the same great one-day
builds tool tips
the podcast etc but if you are willing
to join
we've got some pretty cool extras and
two levels at which to join
for a buck 99 a month we have our
supporter level and for 9.99 a month
our patron level which includes all the
stuff from the supporter level
and some live streams some direct access
to me and the tested team
and some sneak peeks into our entire
tested workflow and process
we are so excited about the new
possibilities that channel membership
opens up and we know that many of you
have been supporting us all along as
tested premium members and to you
i say thank you your support has meant
everything and you can keep it going
by hitting our brand new join button
somewhere on
this screen thank you guys for watching
and between you and me
i am most excited by the live streams i
really love doing those earlier this
summer and i can't wait to pick it up
again
