mixed materials

[youngdylan]

Been a while since I posted much ... some may say thata good thing!. Kinda got sucked into a black hole of a piece of work and then got out of the habit. Photo's show the work.

The "cages" holding the glass blowings are more decorative than functional , the "buds" are actually resin set onto the end of the stainless stems. Likewise the stainless buds are drilled and reamed and then fixed with loctite onto the stems ... hey, it is the 21st century after all. Mainly done because it's much neater than a weld and since the location is slap bang next to the sea, there'll be less corrosion issues with the weld. The buds are 316L forged from 40mm, 30mm and 25mm bars then annealed (something to do with integrannular corrosion) and then electropolished. They were "hand" polished upto a 180 grit first but I left much of the hammer marks in .... kinda gives them a gem like quality to match the glass. The stems are satin finished, the support posts sprayed gun metal grey. The horizontal bands heavily textured to reflect the dry stone wall and have a vaguely "pennant" shape. They are spayed black paint mixed with plenty of graphite flake then burnished just as the paint sets to give a silvery grey tone to the highlights. The whole packages has a pleasing (to me) pallet of colours/materials/textures etc. The gates are more of my messing around trying to make gates without a frame.

The client wanted "something different". Kinda think she got it

[Thomas Dean]

Now THAT'S a gate and railing! I love the whole thing. And I would say that your client got a very nice and unique piece of work. Thanks for sharing...and welcome back!

[youngdylan]

Now THAT'S a gate and railing! I love the whole thing. And I would say that your client got a very nice and unique piece of work. Thanks for sharing...and welcome back!

Thanks Thomas. The thing that niggles me is that is her holiday home !!! Can't fault her as a client though, paid plenty upfront, very helpful contractors and paid in full the day it was completed

[Dillon Sculpture]

Wow! I glad you been gone too... so you could build the work!

That gate is really cool, any more detail shots?

[Mainely,Bob]

That bit of work has a real musical feel to it.Must be nice to run into someone who will allow you to pull out all the stops.
As they say up here on the coast of Maine,"Now THAT`S AHHH-T!".

We have to somehow get you over here to Larry`s shop to see and play with all of his gear(to further your addiction) and then ship Larry over to your side of the pond to work with you for a while in order for him to get a grip on correct use of available space(and encourage him to buy real estate).
Where`d those "Blacksmiths Without Borders" T shirts go?

Think I still have an appropriately man sized shipping crate around somewhere.Anybody know what trans-Atlantic boat freight goes for now?

PS-Good news!I found the crate and there`s enough room for you and the bike if you curl up in a S shape under the bike and around the wheels.Once you land in Portland Maine we can fill the tank,strap on a cooler full of lobster,hand you a compass and head you west. :D

[nuge]

Nice YD! The gates are elegant. Terriffic upsets on the big bars. Thanks for the shot of the delivery rig, love seeing that kind of thing.

[monstermetal]

that really is super cool.... and looks like it was a lot of fun...

[David Browne]

Ahhh, there you are YD with the bad reputation...
Welcome back! I now see why you've been missing. Great project, really nice integration of materials. Exceptional execution. Bravo!
-DB

[Bentiron1946]

That is a really righteous project! It would look very nice around my acreage but the snot bag kids with the air rifles would make short work of the glass elements. Who did the glass for you and does it light up at night? :blink:

[David Browne]

Thanks Thomas. The thing that niggles me is that is her holiday home !!! Can't fault her as a client though, paid plenty upfront, very helpful contractors and paid in full the day it was completed

Customers that pay are my favorite (second only to customers that pay AND let you do what you want). Sounds like you found the latter variety.
-DB

[Bad Creek Blacksmith]

WOW, I'm blown away nice work. About the only way to get something done is to stay away from the computer. Great job!

[bigfootnampa]

The whole project is quite inspirational... very artistic work. As I view the photos I find that I am a bit put off by the colors though... I believe that it would look considerably better if you did it in black and red and left out the stainless. The shiny stainless seems to clash with the black and detract from the effect of the red buds. I can see it in my minds eye all black with the red buds gleaming here and there... and WOW! I also really LOVE the upsets on the newels! The meandering flow of the fence is very interesting and I find the height variations exceptionally attractive too! I like the gate design quite a lot!

[youngdylan]

Thanks everybody for the compliments. Guess the project got bit too big for one man in a 400 sq ft workshop; note the use of the ceiling as storage space. Also note the use of the deepthroat flypress ..... just love those tools.

Bentiron, the contractors sourced the glass for me but no it doesn't light up. Thats the first question the locals asked, mostly they didn't like it because it wasn't traditional Cornish .... whatever the **** that is (the work is in St Mawes) I was a bit worried about vandalism (hitting glass, bending stems etc) but it's in a very secluded part surrounded by very rich peoples holiday homes.

Bob, re the blacksmiths without borders ..... might well happen ...... it's definitely high on my list to tour the states on a Harley (hired or maybe fly mine over in that crate). Guess timing re stopping work and finding/moving BIGGER workshop beforehand is the issue.

Danger, attached some shots showing it being made .... guess it's as much fabrication as blacksmithing ..... but what the ***l. I'll quite happily use ANY tool that gets the job done better, quicker, or more cost effectively. It's no big deal being a blacksmith to me, it's all about messing with the metals and experimenting. What I call myself when people ask what I do is a whole 'nother thing .... don't really see myself as an artist really; just a bloke in a shed playing with his toys.

[youngdylan]

The whole project is quite inspirational... very artistic work. As I view the photos I find that I am a bit put off by the colors though... I believe that it would look considerably better if you did it in black and red and left out the stainless. The shiny stainless seems to clash with the black and detract from the effect of the red buds. I can see it in my minds eye all black with the red buds gleaming here and there... and WOW! I also really LOVE the upsets on the newels! The meandering flow of the fence is very interesting and I find the height variations exceptionally attractive too! I like the gate design quite a lot!

Bigfoot, yeah, I could picture it in all black with red detailing too .... kinda like all black bike engines with discrete use of chrome detailing. There was a big discussion with the client at the start of the project about stainless or not and the fact that the sea is about 100 metres away swung things.

David, sure was nice to find a rich customer who basically paid to allow me to play with my toys ..... hope she's got friends!

[Dillon Sculpture]

As they would say on your side of the pond, Brilliant! This work reminds me very much of music, very lyrical with the different levels and colors and the band that connects them all together, was this your intention in the design? How did you texture all the plate and what was your choice of bearings for the gate?

Thanks for posting,

[Mainely,Bob]

Now you`ve done it!You`ve got Iron Mike thinking in yet another direction.
It is always a wonder how you do the work like you do.You look at the pics of your shop and think"how does he ever work in there"and then you see the in progress shots and the work is taking up what little space is left and yet these monumental things come out the door on a regular basis.
You`d make a great bubblehead(sailor on a submarine).I have a few friends who are former bubbleheads and their shops are like broom closets. :rolleyes:

[strube1369]

Absolutely gorgeous!

[Bryce Masuk]

Nice job

its a pretty funky looking fence/gate

reminds me of an amusement park entrance

I think you pulled it off just right it must have been really tricky working in your shop with that size of pieces

it probley seemed like half the work was simply moving them around.

I have similar problems its mostly my fault though my shop could be better organized

[youngdylan]

As they would say on your side of the pond, Brilliant! This work reminds me very much of music, very lyrical with the different levels and colors and the band that connects them all together, was this your intention in the design? How did you texture all the plate and what was your choice of bearings for the gate?

Thanks for posting,

Danger, I wasn't really thinking of music, I was more playing around with the "frameless" thing I like to do but yeah I can see why you say music, might actually "think" music next chance I get and sea what happens.

Plate was textured using bolt on dies in my Kinyon. I have occassionally thought about milling some dovertails for it but it's kinda handy being able to quickly "throw together" dies, allows you to be quite experimental without to do much planning ahead. I'll try to dig out some photos of the dies, the photo shows various other Kinyon dies. The business end of texturing dies was some 4340 forged to 50mm square, about 100m long with "grooves" randomly cut in with and angle grinder. Gas forges sure are good when working plate. As anside it's one of those jobs where the Kinyon is better than the Anyang, both for making dies and cos the narrow throat of the Anyang means you can only work about 125mm wide strips

Bearing are a 25mm ...ish ball on the bottom that is part of the electrical opener, top is a collar around the 60mm upright. No bronze or other bearing material, well greased steel on steel. The whole thing turns freely; that nice feeling where you can feel the weight of the gate but move it with one finger.

[Bryce Masuk]

Danger, I wasn't really thinking of music, I was more playing around with the "frameless" thing I like to do but yeah I can see why you say music, might actually "think" music next chance I get and sea what happens.

Plate was textured using bolt on dies in my Kinyon. I have occassionally thought about milling some dovertails for it but it's kinda handy being able to quickly "throw together" dies, allows you to be quite experimental without to do much planning ahead. I'll try to dig out some photos of the dies, the photo shows various other Kinyon dies. The business end of texturing dies was some 4340 forged to 50mm square, about 100m long with "grooves" randomly cut in with and angle grinder. Gas forges sure are good when working plate. As anside it's one of those jobs where the Kinyon is better than the Anyang, both for making dies and cos the narrow throat of the Anyang means you can only work about 125mm wide strips

Bearing are a 25mm ...ish ball on the bottom that is part of the electrical opener, top is a collar around the 60mm upright. No bronze or other bearing material, well greased steel on steel. The whole thing turns freely; that nice feeling where you can feel the weight of the gate but move it with one finger.

I have also seen people use 1/4 inch round bar of tool steel like A2 or something and weld them to a plate for texturing.

your dies look pretty nice but it probley was alot of hours in total to make them all just right.

but once you have them and they work you never look back.