DIY Steel Fire Pit

I made this fire pit in about a day using approximately $40 USD worth of steel. Check out the video as well as the instructions here!

I started with a 24" x 24" steel plate and 2 steel gussets that were 12" along two sides. They were all 3/16" thick. I also used a 10-ft long piece of 1/2" square steel tubing for the base.

I set up a scrap piece of steel tubing to act as a guide to cut the steel plate in half. I just used a regular cut-off disc in my angle grinder.

This left me with 2 plates that were each 12" x 24".

I lined up a 12" side of one of the gussets with a 12" side of one of the plates and tacked it in place with the welder. I was using 0.025" MIG wire and 75% Argon/25% CO2 gas for this project.

I repeated the same thing on the other side.

I laid out the second plate on my work table and set the three completed sides on top of it. After lining everything up, I welded it in place and completed all the other welds on the sides that were just tacked in place.

I switched to a sanding disc in my angle grinder and ground off all the welds, because they were way too ugly to leave on there :)

I broke down the 1/2" square steel tubing and cut 8 pieces that were each 12" long. I'm using a metal-cutting chop saw for this. These are different tools than a regular miter saw... definitely don't attempt to cut steel using a regular miter saw!

I used a small metal-cutting bandsaw to notch out a 1/2" from both sides of 4 of the pieces. This will allow me to slide another 1/2" piece into the notch and not have any holes showing. You could also just cut 45-degree miters, but I just personally prefer this method.

Here's what the notch looks like.

The goal was to end up with 2 sides that were notched out for each of the 2 squares. So 4 notched sides and 4 solid sides.

Hopefully here you can see how the pieces fit together and the whole notching-thing makes sense. I'm using a 90-degree vice to hold the pieces square and weld them, but you definitely don't need a special vise. Just a speed-square or something that's 90 degrees will work fine.

I welded up all 4 corners of each of the 2 squares.

Here's the result.... 2 squares that are about 12" on each side (the notching process makes them very slightly rectangular).

I ground down the welds with a sanding disc again to make 'em pretty.

I cut one last piece of 1/2" tubing to 24" long. This will be used to connect the 2 squares and complete the base.

I welded the 2 squares to the cross-beam, checking again and again for square as I went.

Here's the completed base.

I used some (approximately) 2" side wooden spacers to make sure the base was attached to the basin at the same place on each side.

Welding one side....

And welding the other side...

The last thing to do was smooth out those welds where the cross-beam connects to the squares.

Thanks for following along! Check out my YouTube channel and Instagram for many other projects!

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