I was awarded a contract to do 100 coat hooks for the restaurant in the new San Francisco Giants ball stadium. Here are a few of the little soldiers lined up and drying from the final finish. Next time you are in SF, feel free to visit the restaurant and hang your hat on my hooks...they are nothing fancy, just basic production work - but this sort of thing is often bread and butter to many of us.

Nice!

Man's got a nice 200pound (?) Beaudry back there. "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors hammer".

Nice!

Man's got a nice 200pound (?) Beaudry back there. "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors hammer".

She's a #4 or 100lb. I wish I had a 200 Beaudry - they are great mechanical hammers.

Been trying to sweet talk the owner of my old #5 to sell it back to me. I really liked that hammer.

I know a guy who had a 300 lb Beaudry for sale. I havn't talked to him lately he may still have it if you are interested. I think he wanted $5000 CDN for it.

Bread and butter is good! Nice job on the "little soldiers"!

Grant - I'm thinkin' we need to re-name you "hammer head". . . You gotta have a sore neck by now from your head snapping-to whenever you come within sight of a power hammer!

Hey those hooks should last forever! that's bad business in the production world

havent you heard every year you need to apply gravity coating to them otherwise whatever is attached might just float away

"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors hammer".

WHY NOT?

...they are nothing fancy, just basic production work

Sometimes, fancy is doing exactly what is called for. Those look fancy to me. Wherever you hang your hat...that's your hook!

BTW, how does a smith from Texas get a hook gig in SF? You must have a really good marketing department. ;)

Sometimes, fancy is doing exactly what is called for. Those look fancy to me. Wherever you hang your hat...that's your hook!

BTW, how does a smith from Texas get a hook gig in SF? You must have a really good marketing department.

Dave,

I was also a little surprised but the architect said she found my website on the 'net and liked the look of my work. We went through 4 iterations before she was satisfied with the final result. The first design had forged and faceted balls on the ends but the end customer apparently liked plain snub ends better.

Regardless of whether I landed the work, one thing for which I praised them was their extra efforts to use American sources for the work going into the ball stadium and restaurant. Rather than the typical kneejerk response to automatically import hardware and furniture from overseas sources, the owners and designers consciously chose domestic makers for as much as possible. I applaud that intent anywhere.

So I reckon y'all California boys need to keep yore chins up and be good now, y'hear...

Hollis

Maybe he has a good website, he's a Giants fan or the restaurant's home office is in Texas.
Nice job on the coat hooks however you got the job.
Off by a little bit in my response but glad to see that the owner and architect wanted "Made in USA". Good websites pay off!

Dave,

I was also a little surprised but the architect said she found my website on the 'net and liked the look of my work. We went through 4 iterations before she was satisfied with the final result. The first design had forged and faceted balls on the ends but the end customer apparently liked plain snub ends better.

Regardless of whether I landed the work, one thing for which I praised them was their extra efforts to use American sources for the work going into the ball stadium and restaurant. Rather than the typical kneejerk response to automatically import hardware and furniture from overseas sources, the owners and designers consciously chose domestic makers for as much as possible. I applaud that intent anywhere.

So I reckon y'all California boys need to keep yore chins up and be good now, y'hear...

Hollis

Us California boys have been put on notice!

Great story, and glad to hear the folks at Giant Stadium would go the extra mile to buy American. You shouldn't be surprised. Your work is top notch and you present yourself well. It also sounds like you went the extra mile to make sure that they got exactly what they wanted. Hopefully that contact will turn into more work for you in the future. I maintain a list of Architects that I enjoy working with. Every 4 months, I mail them a hand written postcard inviting them to take a look at the new work on my website. I've gotten a lot of repeat business this way just by reminding them that I'm still here.

It's always good to ask the buyers how they found us. This knowledge helps us to be more proactive about finding THEM.
-DB

Us California boys have been put on notice!

Great story, and glad to hear the folks at Giant Stadium would go the extra mile to buy American. You shouldn't be surprised. Your work is top notch and you present yourself well. It also sounds like you went the extra mile to make sure that they got exactly what they wanted. Hopefully that contact will turn into more work for you in the future. I maintain a list of Architects that I enjoy working with. Every 4 months, I mail them a hand written postcard inviting them to take a look at the new work on my website. I've gotten a lot of repeat business this way just by reminding them that I'm still here.

It's always good to ask the buyers how they found us. This knowledge helps us to be more proactive about finding THEM.
-DB

Well, thanks for the kind words, Mr Browne - you sound like a stand-up fellow and your advice on repeat business is well taken. I confess I do more work with builders than architects but don't have anything in particular to say about either type. I can also affirm that I get more work off my website than I ever thought about before going on the internet. Prior to starting the website in 2004, I only worked within a small geographic area in Central Texas - afterwards, the world opened up and I started shipping products all over the country.