How to Make a Cool Steel Fire Pit for Your Back Yard or Garden

In this Instructable I will try to show how I made a cool back yard fire pit from some chequerplate and rebar.

The design is very simple and shouldn't be too challenging for anyone with basic welding and cutting skills.

You will notice by the pictures that I'm an absolute amateur at this, and I'm hoping that this fact will inspire other amateurs to have a go too.

I'm only going to use metric measurements in this. Sorry if you still adhere to archaic systems, but they make my brain hurt.

To make the bowl part you will need a piece of steel plate 1200mm x 1200mm. This is half a standard sheet so there is only one cut to make the initial square.

To make the stand you will need about 11m of 12mm rebar or steel bar of some sort.

Step 1: Cutting the Plate for the Bowl

Get out your tape measure and mark the steel plate as I have done in the sketch.

With a cutting disc cut out the corner pieces as shown.

Lightly score the fold lines on the central square. This will help you bend the plate neatly.

Step 2: Shaping the Bowl

Now bend along the edges of the central square until the corners meet. I got my beautiful wife to help with this. It's quite tricky single-handed.

Lightly weld the corners to hold the shape.

You may need to get a hammer onto it at this point to get the edges to meet.

Weld the edges together.

A bit of a tidy up with a grinder might be a good idea now to get rid of any sharp bits.

You now have the bowl part of your fire pit completed.

Step 3: Making the Stand

It may just be me, but I think structures made from rebar look cool. You might like to choose a different look.

The idea of the stand is to safely raise the bowl above ground level. It is simply made up of two squares; one is 700mm x 700mm to hold the bowl part, and the base is 900mm x 900mm. Between these squares is a very simple lattice to give it rigidity.

First cut the bar for you two squares: 4 x 900mm and 4 x 700mm.

Set the squares out taking care to make sure they are square and weld the corners. TIP: measure the diagonals of the squares before welding to be sure they are actually square - they should be equal.

When you have the two squares made up it's time to go 3D. I found this bit to be quite fiddly. You can see in the pictures that I propped the smaller square on some bits of timber etc to get it to the right height and position. Once the smaller square is in a satisfactory position measure and cut some bar to go between the corners. Carefully position these and lightly weld them. When all four are tacked in place you can get rid of the temporary supports.

Check that the structure looks even and square. If it looks wonky don't be afraid to get the hammer onto it.

Now measure and cut bar to go from the centres of each edge of the larger square to the top corners. Just look at the picture if that last sentence didn't make sense.

Check for wonkyness and if all good weld all the joints properly.

Tidy up the welds with a grinder if necessary.

Step 4: Conclusion

Put the rebar stand on the ground resting on the larger square. Drop the bowl part into the stand. Stand back and admire your awesome new fire pit.

If course you now need to fill it with wood and flames and get a bunch of friends to stand around it drinking beer while they all come up with clever ways of adapting it for cooking.

I hope you have enjoyed this; my first Instructable in years. If you have any comments, tips or ideas, please feel free to comment.

And if you would like to see some more of my work please check out my Etsy shop at deBurghSTEEL.