Gas Cylinder Turned to a Modern Metal Planter

Hey Guys,

today we're taking some trash and try to make something nice out of it :)

This story again involves my wife (how else...), as part of her pastry business she inflates helium balloon for her customers. I always wanted to try something with those empty cylinders, and also needed a planter, so I thought what the heck let's try!

Got a chance to practice my welding skills, obviously still need some practice on those.

Make sure to check out the YouTube video for a surprise visit from our rabbit Herzl! I guess he stopped by to check if I'm finally building his dream house, oh well...

IMPORTANT! Please do not try this unless you know what you're doing! Gas cylinders hold a lot of pressure and might contain flammable gas so there's a risk of explosion! This is helium which is a non-flammable gas, I also made sure to remove any leftover gas completely by filling the cylinder with water before cutting into it.

1x Empty gas cylinder

1x Black color spray

1x Gold color spray

1x Painter's tape

1x long ruler

1x Plant of your choice (I went with a young Areca palm for this one)

Tools:

Safety equipement: Welding helmet, welding gloves

Angle Grinder + Grinding wheel + Flap wheel

Welding machine + 6013, 2.5mm (3/32 inch) electrodes + Wire brush

Electric drill with metal drill bits

First thing we gotta do is clear out any leftover gas that might still occupy the cylinder... Helium is non-flammable but this is good practice either way.

Remove the gas cylinder valve and make sure to fill it all the way with water or sand

Now that the cylinder is gas free, we can start cutting it!

For this design I wanted a tall planter, so I cut it about 5-6cm (2-2.3 inch) from the bottom.

I marked my cut line with a long flexible ruler, and cut along that line with the angle grinder.

Once the piece was cut, I placed it aside for later use and started smoothing out the sharp edge externally and internally (Please use a flap wheel for this instead of a grinding disc)

We all know how important it is to make proper draining holes, these allow excess water to exit the planter after watering, ensuring that water does not sit at the base of the planter for too long, causing the plant to rot etc..

This is extremely important with metal planters, as they can and will rust very quickly.

There was already one hole from the valve that I removed, so I decided to add six additional holes.

I marked six holes with a hole puncher and proceeded to drilling them.

So now I pretty much had a metal planter already, however it didn't look or feel very stable :)

Remember the piece I cut earlier? Now it was time to put it to use...

I grabbed it and placed it on top of the valve guard, then tacked it together on four spots while making sure it will stand (sorta) straight.

After tack welding it I cleaned the tacks and welded the two pieces together. This is probably not the best weld ever but for a planter it holds pretty well!

I then switched to my flap wheel on the grinder and ground the weld as much as possible.

Once the structure was ready, it was spray time!

Before starting this project the only thing I knew is that I wanted a color combination of black and gold, but to be honest I didn't quite know how to combine them until the planter was ready. I didn't really know what shape it would have when I started working on it...

However once it was prepared it was obvious to me that the majority would be black, with a gold stripe at the top.

I first applied black spray, then moved on to applying gold, and then black again, all the while protecting the golden stripe with a painter's tape.

And that's it!
I'm very happy with the end result, I think it looks great and is a nice addition to the front door of my house!

If you liked this project check out my video (link at the top) and youtube channel for other stuff that I'm making :)

Guy