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self-designing project

firewood holder 900The fireplace was heating up my desk more than I would like, but I did not want to move the desk from its location I designed into the room. I was building a firewood log rack that would deflect the heat while storing logs next to the desk.

My plumbing and heating contractor friend gave me a scrap of sheet metal I intended to put on the wood-stove side of the scrap-iron rack that was nearing completion in my metal shop.

“The problem” with the scrap was the 90-degree fold it had, while I was visualizing a flat piece for my project. Cutting off the base of the “L” was easy enough, but until I got Round-Tuit, and finished the rack, it was stored next to the fireplace … holding logs.

Huh?! It worked perfectly…
cool to the touch a mere 6 inches from a
wood-stove hot enough to boil water.
firewood holder 2 7x
No engineering. No fabrication. Just worked as delivered.

Well, it worked as a deflector perfectly, but wasn’t strong enough to retain its shape when loaded as full as I would like, and the sharp edges were an accident waiting to happen.

Those drawbacks were easy enough for me to eliminate with some wood framing and reinforcement. So here we have the log rack that designed itself.

Now it really does work perfectly.