Stainless drainage grate

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No welding yet in this project...not until tomorrow since I'm worn out from drilling holes today.This project is a custom made stainless steel drainage grate for a paver patio.  My neighbor is a landscaper and finished up a rather large job, but there was a need for a flush inset drainage grate and nothing really fit well off the shelf, so on to me to make one.The entire grate and bracketing underneath is made of 309SS.  The grate portion shown below is 8"x8"x1/4".  Pattern was first done up in Rhino3d, then printed to scale.  Glued to the plate with 3m spray adhesive, then every hole marked with the optical center punch.  Finally on to the drilling which took about 3 hrs on the drill press (wish I had a CNC machine for jobs like this).Holes are 1/4" with a light chamfer to ensure they don't cut the customers childrens toes.  After all that, I gave it my patented super secret magical satin finish (okay, it's just 220grit on a random orbit sander, but I've found that it produces a nice finish on SS).Here's the pics (welding pics will come tomorrow...fun with the TIG then):Sorry for the cellphone pics...too much cutting oil around to trust taking the SLR into the shop for this part.--Wintermute"No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience." - John Lockewww.improvised-engineering.comManufacturer Agnostic:Blood----------Sweat---------Tears----|------------------|----------------|----Lincoln Red, Miller Blue, Esab Yellow
Reply:Looks great!  Where's the welding??? Anyway, you reminded me that I need to do a couple for my brother's garage.  He had 3/8" mild steel drilled like that and the rust pretty much closed off all the holes.  These will be 14"x18" nominal.  Was thinking of using bar grate, but it's 1" high and the recess is about 1/2".  Maybe the thing to do is get a piece of 1/4" aluminum or stainless, cnc plasma cut some slots in 45deg patterns, weld a couple "fins" (braces) to the bottom, and drop it in.Any gueses as to how much that should cost?
Reply:That's nice!  Is the Rhino easy to use?
Reply:Originally Posted by Fabn4FunMaybe the thing to do is get a piece of 1/4" aluminum or stainless, cnc plasma cut some slots in 45deg patterns, weld a couple "fins" (braces) to the bottom, and drop it in.Any gueses as to how much that should cost?
Reply:Originally Posted by aDreamSoRealThat's nice!  Is the Rhino easy to use?
Reply:WintermuteThanks for the review! Going to take a closer look at rhino and see if i like it.
Reply:If you just need 2D, DraftSight is basically the 2D portion of AutoCAD:http://www.3ds.com/products-services...ight/overview/
Reply:That grate would be done very well with plasma, would require a little time (maybe 15 minutes) to chamfer the holes after cutting. The entire part would be cut in less than 4 minutes on my cnc plasma. I would make that part for less than $60 inculding material and labor and cutting. Plasma is fast, the cost per foot of air plasma cutting on this material is less than 15 cents. If I had to draw the part....I would add about 10 minutes to the process, the hole layout would be very quick and simple.Jim Colt
Reply:Jim,Would those 1/4" diameter holes be about the smallest you could go in 1/4" plate?
Reply:Yes, you could go smaller but then you may want to drill or ream them to minimize taper. Even better, I would put a slotted pattern on a drain grate....stayes cleaned out much better, and that is something you can do easily with plasma. I made some for a buddy of mine with his name, and the build date of the house that they were installed at.Jim Originally Posted by dbotosJim,Would those 1/4" diameter holes be about the smallest you could go in 1/4" plate?
Reply:Yeah, I wish I had a cnc plasma to do it on...unfortunately, not yet.  It's a project for next year to build one so that I can expand the jobs I can do and increase my profit margin --Wintermute"No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience." - John Lockewww.improvised-engineering.comManufacturer Agnostic:Blood----------Sweat---------Tears----|------------------|----------------|----Lincoln Red, Miller Blue, Esab Yellow
Reply:Well, all done...the base portion was fusion welded...definitely not Zap level of work, but heck, it'll do and I very rarely use the TIG...something I need to spend some more time with I guess.Here ya go:--Wintermute"No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience." - John Lockewww.improvised-engineering.comManufacturer Agnostic:Blood----------Sweat---------Tears----|------------------|----------------|----Lincoln Red, Miller Blue, Esab Yellow