I really didn't want to miss-cut any of these pieces so I took my time.

after cutting the three long pieces I cut the 6 tabs that would be welded on the outside.

then I cut the small square pieces that would be welding on the inside. lucky me, these
large holes were already drilled in these pieces of metal. the pieces were the ends of old
warn out flails that came out of the inside a industrial wood chipper.

six of them and I'm good to go. interestingly these pieces were harder to cut because
I think this steal might have been a hardened steel since it needed to withstand all the
thrashing inside the wood chipper.

just checking that I have all the pieces I need cut. it was nice to very quickly
compare what I had to my full scale card board mockup.

I ground all the corners on all the pieces smooth before welding.

here are the outside tabs clamped in place ready to be welded. I almost incorrectly
measured the placement of these tabs twice! again I was glad to have the full scale
card board mock up there for quick reference.

I decided to not put any welds on the bottoms of the tabs so that they would sit as
smoothly as possible on top of the cube walls.

here's the beast of a welder that was used. these things are pretty darn heavy
despite their small looking size. running it at 90 Amps seemed to be about right.

this is kevin, the father of the little neighbor kid. among other things he knows
how to weld and offered his services after I showed him what I was building.

[zap zzzz-zap] now that's really HOT!

a little hammering to clear the slag off the welds so we can see if the welds are good...

the welding looks to be working fine, ie. the metal's all hot and melted together.
heck, it's going to be strong enough to hold my little tiny space frame for sure!

kevin welds the little square pieces to the inside.

things can look fairly rough after the welding, but the power hand grinder will
quickly smooth all this back out and clean up all the rough welding spatter.
(and hey, look-- the welder even followed the welding instructions)

two of the three finished columns -- ground (mostly) smooth and ready for painting!