Beautiful weather vanes from junk
Recycling antique metals and spare parts into lawn art.
How to turn spare parts into decorative
wind-pointers.
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By Lynden O. Hare
PHOTOGRAPH © LYNDEN O. HARE
I'D BEEN IMPRESSED FOR YEARS BY
weather vanes I'd seen around the country. And for years
the large barns on our farms in southern Oregon had gone
undressed, so to speak. So one day I decided to fire up my
welder and build a vane from the junk I had lying around
the ranch. As I have one of the finest collections of junk
in the area—much to the dismay of my wife—I had
and have plenty to choose from.
Well, to get to the construction: The first thing to build
was a base that would fit the peak of the barn. The base
was an old piece of 3" angle iron about 4' long with two
pieces of bed-rail angle iron 2' long welded perpendicular
to the center. As our barn is oriented true north and
south, I simply cut out letters for each wind direction
from an old truck hood and welded them to the appropriate
piece of angle iron, according to the way it would sit atop
the barn. I welded two braces to the center of the base to
stabilize and secure it to the roof. It is important that
the base be level so that the center of gravity is
perfectly centered.
The next step is to weld or attach an old front-wheel
spindle to the center of the base. This is what the upper
part of the vane will rotate on. A front-wheel spindle and
hub, properly packed with grease, is probably the best set
of bearings you could obtain for this purpose and will last
for years with little or no maintenance. I then cut out the
center of an old wheel that matches the bolt pattern of the
hub. The upper part of the vane will be mounted on this, as
it allows the weather vane to be bolted together into two
parts for ease of installation.
Weld a short piece of hollow driveline, with the solid
spline shaft part pointed upward, to the wheel center.
Tack-weld a good secondhand thro-out bearing around the
spline shaft that will carry the wind cups. The bearing
will allow the wind cups to rotate independent of the rest
of the vane. It is important to mount the cups on a ring
that clamps to the bearing, either by bent tabs or bolts,
as welding them to the bearing itself will warp and ruin
it.