Guitar hooks completed

After three weeks of soild forging, forming, drilling and riveting the making stage is finally over. I'm really pleased with the out come and it looks fantastic, I only need to clean it up now and make it look abit more presentable and then to apply the heat shrink rubber to the hooks and I can call that finished. Things are looking up people !..!,

    

the post card photo

In the end this was the photo I went for as my postcard as it fills the positive and negative space and shows off all the details in the bars. I’m very happy with this photo and all the others that were taken, these photos not only show the mic-stand looking great but also what I’m all about too.

professional photos of the mic-stand

Last week monday the college bought in a professional photographer to take pictures of our work to go on post cards that will be at the Final Show and New Designers. Well today we all recieved a CD with our chosen photographs from the photo session on and selected one for the post cards. I just wanted to share these photos with everyone and i'm quite proud of how they came out.

A step back to move forward

As its the weekend and theres not much work I can do until I get back into college and the forge, I decided to crack open the Sketch book and draw out some new ideas. As i've been so focused on the wall mount more over the past couple of months it's nice to take a step back and think about other products I could design and create from some new ideas. We all should be grenerating fresh ideas to keep our creative side flourishing and give us something to work towards, its something I haven't really taken the time to do recently. So I think that we all should take some time out of their week and dedicate it to just trying to grenerate new ideas, even if it only for an hour.    

slight set back to a better tomorrow

As I've said in my last post i've been working on the wall connections for the guitar wall mount i'm making and had been practicing forging out tenons for about a week so I could forge the components out to the best of my ability. i had forged most of the components out and was just finishing them off (Granted they weren't quite going as planed) and when I showed the idea to Del who came in to visit us in the forge, didn't like the visual of the idea. I design the component to be purly functional and not really visually linked to the aesthetics of the design and there it was decided (With gritted teeth I might add) that it needed to be changed. We started brain stroming for new idea and had I pick of a couple of suitable ideas, so back to the sketch book to draw up the next plan.      




These are the drawing of the idea I had for the new connection.

Now I had the drawing it was time to put it into action, so with an early start today and at the forge by 8.30 dead I was ready to go. By lunch time I had all the components to but together to create the ultimate component that would suspend my mount on the wall. They may not look like much here but once their cleaned up and fully riveted to the rest of the mount they'll fit in perfectly. I'm really pleased with these elements and can't wait to see them on a wall, i have to admit there was alot of drilling with different sized drill bits but the forging that went into it looks great. Just a few more extra details to take care of now and it will shortly be completed very soon.   

The Tenon Approach

With only the wall connector and hooks to finish it all tenon forging from here on out but one factor is that i've not forged any tenons since the begining of my second year so there had to be a little refresher in forging tenons. I was shown two different ways of making tenons one with a set hammer and the other with a butcher, both worked really well but I chose to use the butcher as it ment I didn't have to rely on a striker to help me.

Its been nearly a week since my last post and i've been trying to get tenon making right before I try to make the real components but alot of trail and error I think I'm ready to make the real thing now.

These pictures are some of my best samples of the tenons I've been making both round and square as the real connection with require both, this is all done out of 25mm square bar which will be forged down to 10mm round and 15mm square.  

   

The end result should look something like this.

I thought it was time again to post my progress to date on my final piece and what needs to be done next. Well i'm almost at construction stage with all the main components forged, formed and drilled I just need to finish forging the tenons on the ends of the hooks and the wall connectors and i'll be ready the to begin constructing. I have also started to put the finish on the bars so that I will have less to apply later on and hopefully get the whole thing finished much quicker.  

 
I have addtionally look at what the rivet heads could like so a made a sample of different revet heads on the shaped bar although some of them look the same there are suttle differences. It does open the possibilities of what the rivet heads could look like on a larger scale too and squaring the head up so it matches the rivets on the microphone is probably the best idea but the octogen shape looks really cool aswell.   

Artist Statement

I began writing my artist statement a last week and need to get it checked over before I hand it in. I admit it was quite a challenge to fit every important factor about your work sized down into a 150 word statement. I feel i covered everything that needed to be said and this is what i've done so far...

Artist statement   

Music in itself is a form of expression on its own and is one thing that I am very passionate about as it is a great source of comfort and energy. Using forged metal to communicate my passion in the way I have designed by applying my own aesthetic style in blacksmithing to products, the shape of the bar to define the quality of line with the crisp edges and the layering.

Layering the liner forms to generate shapes of negative space which highlight the three dimensional structures I create. I’ve always intended the products I forge to become an extension of the person using it through interaction, forming a really strong and personal connection.

The products I design and create not to just about my own connection to music but more about everyone as an individual and their relation and passion to music.

(154words)

Final piece Update

Its been a busy week in the forge this week although monday didn't go quite as planed as the forge was out of 12mm square bars so I couldn’t start forging the main sections of the design. I ordered some the next day and had it brought to the forge so I could get working, I’m still a day behind after Monday but I think I’ve done really well so far as all the bars are shaped and all but one are fully formed. I'm hoping by the end of next week to have it mostly constructed, after that I need to get hold of some heat shrinking rubber that dosen't have any text on it and will also need to forge out the connecting parts for the wall but i'm almost half way in about 18 working hours which isn't too bad.