August 15, 200916 yr I remember a little while ago a post somewhere here that someone was talking about professionals who don't post pics of there work and therefore how do we know that they are any good and capable of giving advice-so here goes a few from a not too skilled guy. Garden bench-wrought iron-mortise and tenon Jewelry dish-mild steel Large table legs from 2" solid stock-has 4x8 single piece black walnut top 1-1/2" thick Fireplace doors-1 of a set of 3 in a clients house Scroll-part of a sub-contract job-clients design I flattened them in the fly press hot, so the client had an easy time installing in the gate-part of 1500 or so scrolls and such in the job. Thought it looked cool so I took a picture. Cheers, Mark Emig
August 15, 200916 yr Mark I think that scroll picture is about the nicest smithing photo I have ever seen! Neat work and great photography!
August 15, 200916 yr nice work, sir. let me just write that down on my list of things to remember: "listen to mark emig's opinion when he speaks about metal." that goes on the list right after: "listen to anything Uri Hofi ever says", and right before: "don't eat yellow snow." mark
August 15, 200916 yr The bench is a lovely peice of work, lovely lines and a beautiful simplicity, keep up the great work. The photography on the hot scroll is fantastic.!
August 15, 200916 yr Author I decided to build the bench with the tools I made in a class with Mark Aspery. I kept the legs and such simple as I wanted the focus to be on the joinery. I really like to do mortise and tenon joinery-which by the way is NOT difficult to learn-espescially from Mark-he's a fantastic teacher.
August 15, 200916 yr The red scroll was great. Thanks for showing off! When I feel better I shall try the bench, and the scroll and the .... Loved it all!
August 15, 200916 yr Author Thank you all for the kind words. It's nice to have like minded people say that your work is good. I am always asking myself - is it good enough? But I always see the flaws in all I make, not the good side. The fireplace doors were pretty tricky-the molding is actually channel-I think 1/2x 1-14- squished in the fly press down the center of the stock with a round shoe. The hard part was curving it. The biggest doors were almost 6 feet wide and 4 feet high. It was like handling a big piece of hot spagetti when we curved it. I don't know if you can see it but the fit was neat. We had the mason cut a 3/8" groove 2 inches inside the fireplace all the way around. Then made a 3 piece frame-2 vertical sides and a curved top which were slid into the slot then bolted together. The molding was then bolted to the frame-the buttons in the middle of the little leaves are the bolts. Very challenging job. It was actually my first comission as a professional-3 of them in the same house. They ran about 150 hours each. We had to scribe a piece of plywood inserted in the slots to make a pattern to plasma cut the frame. The reason we did it that way was the client wanted no cement to fill the gaps between the frame and fireplace. It made a really clean, nice looking install with no visible gaps.. Mark Edited August 15, 200916 yr by smithingman spelling
August 16, 200916 yr a few from a not too skilled guy. Yeah right!!!! I'd like to be as unskilled as you. Beautiful work!! welder19
August 16, 200916 yr that fireplace door install is hardcore, mark. real impressive. Edited August 16, 200916 yr by MarkC none of your business
August 18, 200916 yr Author Thanks again for all the compliments-it negates all the self doubt that my work might not be up to par. Mark
August 18, 200916 yr Thanks again for all the compliments-it negates all the self doubt that my work might not be up to par. Mark Anyone worth his/er salt knows where every flaw is no matter how small. Think Da Vinci didn't think the same thing? Frosty
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