Making a custom ash pan for a fire grate from a shelf

We opened up the fireplace recently. We took out an old and way too narrow old fire surround and opened up the chimney void to show off the lovely old bricks.

To make the most of the newly expanded space, we also bought a nice big grate. This makes life so much easier when setting a fire. You can make a small fire or a great big one, easy peasy.

The grate we bought second hand and it had no ash pan. After scouring the Interweb for ages, it turned out that the only way to get a new ash pan that macthed for size and shape was to order a bespoke one. This would have cost more than a hundred quid.

So I made one instead.

Here it is open...

And in place.

Making this didn't seem too tricky a prospect. After all, it's just like making a cardboard box, only from metal! First up was to measure the size needed...

Using an unfolded cardboard box as inspiration, I designed the form I'd need to cut out of metal...

This was transferred to a nice heavy metal shelf, that I had collected from a skip a while back, in case I ever needed some strong sheet metal. That turned out to have been a canny foresight.

Another view. This is one of those folded section dexion-type shelves from an industrial unit.

The lines were drawn using a sharpie maker pen.

The cuts weer made with a metal-cutting disc in an angle grinder. The ends were folded first.

Thus...

After further cutting the long sides were folded up. The ends of these were cut long so they could be folded in to make bracing flaps.

Like so...

Once folded, the sides were held in a sash cramp ready for rivetting together. The clamp allowed the flaps to be precisely folded until the distance between them was exactly as designed.

Two G-cramps were used to pull the end flaps tight together before rivetting.

Then the joining flaps were rivetted together using 4mm blind rivets (pop rivets)

Each end had four rivets.

Thus...

The sides can distort a bit when putting it all together.

Nothing a hammer can't sort out though...

Then the same was done on the other end.

The basic pan was thus made.

Finally (and not shown here) I added a handle and spray painted it all in fireproof paint

Green tomato chutney

This summer, the tomato plants went agreeably nuts in the garden.  I had many pounds of ripe red ones. These were multi-saladed, of course. Delish.

As the summer chilled down to autumn, there were inevitably loads of green tomatoes left hanging, which I knew wouldn't ripen.

So I made them into this...

This was the state of the tomato plants after an already decent harvest.

I had about 8 pounds (3+ kilos). Here are some of them

These were cleavered prior to boiling down...

...and popped into my big pan...

There is also about three quarters of a largish swede diced and added, but you can't see it here. This gives it crunch.

Then it was spiced with ginger, paprika, garlic powder, a bit of cinnamon and a dash of Angostura bitters...

...and a big wodge of muscavado...

All were boiled to shit for ages, until they 'came a thick dark paste of loveliness. 

Making a table into a trunk

When is a table not a table?

When it is a trunk... This one is for the sitting room to hold logs and coal etc.

It used to be this table, which was being given away on Freecycle (thanks to the donor.

Disassemble...

Here is the tabletop and wings that extend it.

The table frame has been deconstructed.

Here are  the legs and rails. Nice solid oak...

This table was hand jointed. You can see the marks of the brace inside the mortice. I'm assuming it was mid-20th century then, possibly earlier.

A good, chunky oak leg...

The top is framed in solid oak. The faces are oak-faced ply...
Here. you can see the mark where I am trimming down the panel width.

The wings have been bisected. They were joined back together later.

To create each panel, a rebated rail was added to both the top and bottom of the cut up table-top pieces. These rails were joined onto the panels using screws.

The rails are length of vintage tropical hardwood from an old cupboard door and gave a more substantial edge (and looked great to).

The main table top was also bisected to give two long panels.The top and bottom rails are already attached here.

I'm missing an image, but the panels once constructed had their edges mitred on the table saw, along their vertical edge, so they could be joined up.

In this pic, they have been mitred and are clamped together ready to create the basic box frame.

The joints were joined simply using corner braces. Glue was applied where the mitres meet for added strength, but its the screwed on brace plates that are holding this together.

The basic box frame showign tp and bottom rails jointed together with all corner braces in place.

Next a base plate of 8mm plywood (scrounged from a skip) was added into the bottom recess created by the added box rails. This was glued in place then reinforced with 25mm screws all round. An additional centre rail was added to strengthen the base.

Inside the box, the mitred corners were further reinforced by gluing in vertical corner pieces. This was rquired because the table panels were only 9mm plywood.

A simple plank-built lid was built from some nice reclaimed old old door jambs (originally from the Natural History Museum). This was built from three thick planks framed with a mitred out edge and all held together with screws through the rail into the plank, using corner braces on the corners and by direct screws for the central plank.

Some butt hinges weer added. I bought these as I didn't have any of the right sze to hand

The box was finished using dark tan shoe polish to warm it up to the reddish colour of the rest of the furniture in the room.

Here it is in the living room

Horseradish sauce

OK, quality beef, barbie-flame-grilled to a near-crisp on the outside and raw in the middle needs a strong condiment. Horseradish is that complimentary foil. Pugs can whistle, though...

I got this bit of root unexpectedly at work from a kindly colleague's allotment.

I wanted to just grow it, but couldn't resist eating it.

For this, I used the more tender end root, cleavering off about 5-6 inches.

I may still plant the top bit and see if it revives after its ordeal.

This is the easiest sauce ever. First peel the root.

...till some sodt and tender lengths of core remain.

Finely grate...

It is quite dry, more like parsnip than carrot for wetness.

But grating leaves it slightly longer than wanted, so out wth the chopper.

Without this step, the grated root is slightly too dry and fibrous, After a fair bit of chopping and some flat-of-the-blade crushing, it ends up as a pile of softish pulp.

Effectively the cleavering is pre-chewing the flesh so that it does not feel tough on the mouth when blended into the sauce.

Pop it in pyrex

And slather in mayo.

Agitate

I left this for about 2 hours after mixing.

And serve with a gratuitously proportioned mixed grill -  steak, burger, chops and chips. It is fair to say, I enjoyed that.

Alternatives
I think cream cheese instead of mayo would have been pretty good, one of those whipped/strained yoghurts like Total/Skyr or perhaps soured cream.