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I Forge Iron

David Kailey

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  • Website URL
    http://www.morganjadeironworks.com/

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Spokane,wa
  • Interests
    Drawing, designing, smithing, it is pretty much all i do lately.

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  • Location
    Spokane,wa

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  1. Looks clean, straight. It's not a simple thing to get all that layed out and assembled in that manner. Nice work.
  2. Thank you both. I'll have to check out Louise Nevelson or David Smith's. I have not heard of them. It also gave me an opportunity to forge some elements and skills I don't usually get to do in my commissioned work.
  3. I appreciate all your comments. Here are the 5 W's about this piece. I started smithing in January 2012. I took a 2 day class in Spokane, Wa with Steve McGrew. I never took another class. I'd forge, weld and plasma cut stuff with my 2 daughters Mady was 9 and Morgan-Jade was 6. Later that year the day after our anniversary, on Sept 1st, Morgan-Jade died, unexpectedly and not for sure why. After weeks of trying to get a foot hold and move forward. Gina(my wife) told me I had to go to the shop. She didn't care if I came right back home. But she wanted to see that the alarm had been reset. After the 4th day of doing that, I needed a tool to fix something at the house. On my work bench was a big wild flower that the girls and I had started. Literally with a chatter chin, sobbing like a baby I finished that piece. After that I went and made....stuff. Anything, a hook, piece of wall art, door handles...whatever. A good friend of mine, Jess was laid off. He is a fantastic junk yard artist. He looks at crap and sees a fish, bigfoot, owl, cockroach.....etc. I don’t. I see things in my head, take stock steel and form the shape I want. So we messed around in the shop, creating, laughing, and crying. I would listen to music...Adel, Guns and Roses, Simon and Garfunkel, Brooks and Dunn, Elton John, Pear Jam. One day a guy walked in the smithy to see a 6'3" 275lb man swinging a hammer, banging hot steel, balling his eyes out listening to Adel. Lol. He'll never get that image out of his head. I realized I didn't care he was there, I needed to cry. So I did. Our currency changed, we deal in real, raw, emotion and are not embarrassed. Happy or sad and we help one another. Not to long after that I started Morgan-Jade Ironworks and Forge. I still think about Morgan-Jade how spunky she was, loved to dance, full of attitude, bold, fearless, thought the world of her big sister. Fierce w/ a tender heart, didn't hide her emotions. Her face always said everything she was thinking. The best description is, people loved Mady because she is kind, generous, and caring. They loved Morgan-Jade because she told them to. Lol. She was a big personality, with a lot of energy, in little blue eyed blond haired bottle. These thoughts bring feeling and emotions. Like the pain from all the trauma we have been thru, love I have for my Family, big holes in my heart from loved ones who are asleep in death. Hurt, watching my wife and daughter live w/o Morgan-Jade. Sadness of saving 3 seats instead of 4 at meetings in the Kingdom Hall. The pride, knowing Gina and I raised one hell of a daughter. Mady knows her way around the smithy, works hard, doesn't shy away from heavy labor, works circles around men her age and many her senior, a problem solver not a creator, figures out a way to make it happen. She is a certified MA, has a job, bought her own car and contributes to the world. Gina is the anvil in my life. We are 26 years strong. We are kept warm due to the love and support the Brothers and Sisters have shown through our entire lives. There's also the frustration of having to take meds because my bipolar downs damage my life and relationships. The meds help me not have the lows....but they also kill the high guy who's everything good I love being. So I settle for the in-between guy never crazy happy, productive, inspiring. But also never crazy depressed self-destructive, with my head in a dark hole while everything I love burns down around me. I struggle to live in the middle somewhere so I can be a good husband, father, faithful servant, son, and neighbor. The back of my shirts say, "Fire, Hammer, Anvil, Heart of a craftsman. I put it there so that every time I pull it up my arms, just before I raise my arms to duck my head in, I am reminded of how blessed my life, is, how beautiful my family is, how Jehovah god will resurrect back Morgan-Jade in the paradise and we will never be without one another again. How wonderful the family we have chosen is. So....yep.... That where this piece comes from. It's a celebration of our biggest wins and worst losses. It's bold, raw(the lighting is why it looks blue), beaten, twisted, skillful, clever, hurt, loving, confused, little bitter, whimsical, hard, faithful, crushed, blessed, borrowed, gnarly, resilient, complex, brutish, fantastic.....its my life. I love this piece. I loved all the emotions/memories good and bad that ran thru my mind as I shaped every piece. I have worked on this here and there for 5 years. This piece is for me, this is my piece, for my family. My childhood friend just lost her son to cancer and another friends daughter is being treated. My heart hurts for them.....so I went to my shop disarmed the alarm and finish a piece that has been on my work bench. It's just a distraction that gives me time to process a lot of emotions. Morgan-Jade would go nuts about it, look at every bit of it ask some questions. Then probably give me a thumbs up and say, "it's awesome dad". Brain vomit is my way of not having to explain all this anytime I post pics of my emotionally inspired works.
  4. This piece has been stuck in my head. Traditional joinery, all hand forged....except 2 copper rivets.
  5. A few new features I designed. Pickets are forged from 22" long 3/4" square bar drawn out with round dies to 36". The decrative panels....fell out of my head.
  6. Yes. Lol. And I still have another few hundred to forge for the panels that will run down the sides between the posts.
  7. For a customer. I had help 2 day. Pretty much been packing the trusses solo. Lol. The last 2 weren't to bad. But it was quite a solo production moving the bigger ones around. No hoist equipment.
  8. This is a set of trusses for a pergola. All of the fillagree in the field using 3/8" round rod. 7 diffrent scrolls where used. There was a ton of fit and finish work. The truss sit on a 4"x4"x1/4" beam supported by 4-6"x6"x1/4" @ 7ft tall. The pergola is 12' wide 15' tall. There are sides and 2 gates. Which will be the next phase.
  9. Powder coating on the rail, and clear coating on the copper. I have to water him down every 30 min in the summer. winter just once but he freezes up pretty quick.
  10. pickets are tube. less weight and cost. the baskets are $1.68 each so I just buy them to meet budget. I do forge them but i charge $ 12 each cause I can only forge 8 an hour.
  11. Used a rivet set I made years back then drilled a hole the same size of the set thru a 2 x 4 x 4 steel chunk I had and then poked the set thru and welded it. Then I put my 140lb soaking wet apprentice behind that. Lol
  12. Yah Frosty..... that round rod is a different animal.
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