Thursday 16 May 2013

Productive fixing

I may have not spent the day forging away on one of jobs, instead I used the extra pair of hands I given for day fixing the power hammer. Since getting it to work it has had a few teething problem with speed, power and more in general the belt just not gripping the pulley enough, trying to fix this problem with just one pair of hands is extremely difficult so when the opportunity arose to have two pairs of hands I was more than happy to take it up and fix the hammer.
After tweaking with the motor and pulley, mixed in with a few failed attempts where the belt flew off, we finally got the result I was looking for and as you can see from the video the power hammer looks alot more livelier and more aggressive. All that aside its great to see it back up and running again.


I also took the time to rearrange the workshop around a bit to give my self some more space and its looking great!




  

   

Monday 13 May 2013

Update

After a busy weekend outside the workshop it felt great to get back to forging. So with an early start I spent the day drilling, tweaking and riveting the first level of the stand. The first being the base of the whole stand is going to be the trickiest as it has alot of components being riveted at once but I've may have come up with a salutation (without welding anything!!!) which I will try out tomorrow. I have an order of stainless steel coming tomorrow as well for the bracket job I will be doing, so I think tomorrow is going to be a very busy day. As you all seen before I love to play around with the shapes I makes and see what other design or product ideas manifest and here again today I was playing around with these forms and found they make very interesting feet.      



Here you can see that the base is coming together nicely, it is not fully riveted together but you can see what I'm trying too achieve. There has been a few things I haven't anticipated when making this but nothing that has spoiled the design and even though this has taken alot longer than I thought it would, I hope the progress keeps at this pace.



Thursday 9 May 2013

From the roof to the workshop!

It's not everyday you start your morning on top of roof... Mine did!! Four floor up in the centre of Bristol on business... I know what you're thinking what business could you possible have on a roof? Well my client wants me to make six brackets for three windows on the roof of these flats, so I was up there measuring them up. They are at this moment held on by silicon and they would like them to be held on by steel for more support as soon as possible. While I was up there I took these photos.

St Mary Redcliffe Church in the distance I went to the school right next to it.

Bristol Bridge and castle park.
After my high start to the morning I then made my way across Bristol to my workshop where I continued on the cupcake stands I'm making. It was a slow day in the workshop but I made some progress even if I feel it wasn't enough for the 8 hours I was working in the workshop today. 

  
It's really starting to take shape. There are 43 pieces to this stand I've got to make the other 24 more tomorrow and then I can start drilling, which I'm looking forward to but I know is going to be the hardest part of this job. AND THIS IS ONLY THE FIRST STAND OF TWO!!!! This has been a real challenge and will look amazing once it finished. After I packed up for the night I started playing around with some of the components. I really liked these two. Fun and games!!!


 

Saturday 4 May 2013

Next project... Looking sweeter

I spent all of yesterday working on my next commission piece, a set of cupcake stands that have to be come apart in to three parts. Gotta love a challenge! I'd been developing on the styles and forms of my work and this commission fit in perfectly with how I'd design it to come apart. I'm not going to spoil the surprise now so you all are going to have to wait and see, but here's a taster of what I've been doing and I'll update you all next time.