Silent Hill meets the forge!

I don't normally take on weird commissions but with this one I made an exception for. A friend of friend approached me with the idea he had for a cosplay outfit of the character Pyramid head from the film silent hill. The main task to this outfit is the mask which is a big pyramid (hence the name Pyramid head) First we built the frame and cut out the plates that would be welded to the frame from the inside. Because the mask had to look quite rustic I used the grinder and other tools to age it slightly. After aging it, we drilled about 60 holes in each side of the face, making the holes around the eyes wider for more sight. I quite like the finished result it certainly looks the part and I look forward to seeing the mask with the whole outfit in use.

      

A candle stand, Too be or not to be?

Over the past three, four months..... Maybe longer I was in taking to create a paschal candle stand as a memorial in Newnham church. I was approached by the vicar and the interregnum to design a Paschal Candle stand and quote "It would be great to have something new and fresh in the church" There wasn't much metalwork in the church anyway so I began designing a stand in my own aesthetics. I sent a couple of development drawing to the vicar who was to discuss them with the PCC and get some feedback if I had to make any changes. I never heard back, I didn't even know if the drawing were seen by the PCC or not. The next thing I heard was from the interregnum saying that the vicar was leaving the parish and I would have to go through him now. After weeks of not hear from him he contacted me giving me a steep deadline for a professional drawing of the stand that had to be in his hands within two days ready for a meeting with the PCC two days after that. I finished the drawing after spending a whole day on it and sent it away on time, This was the finished result.

         
Two days after the meeting took place I finally heard back from the interregnum who told me that they had already seen the drawings previously from the vicar and had rejected the design and also wanted to drop the whole idea of a new paschal candle stand. They had apparently said that it would not fit in with the rest of the metalwork of the church. So therefore it was unnecessary for the professional drawing to have been sent. I feel it out of respect that they should have contacted me saying they had rejected the design instead of not telling anyone to inform me of their decision. I feel very disrespected by the Newnham parish and will be getting in contact with the bishop and archdeacon to settle this matter.
What do you think of the design?        

Other update.... more recently...

This update is of the more recent things I've been up to over the past couple of weeks. I really wanted to improve the design of the small candle stands I'd made in the past. I came up with a very simple design that worked very well in a set of three. This design has grown on me a lot and am thinking of developing the design in to some larger candle stands in the future.

As I haven't had as much work on as last month I spent the month planning to do a small advertising stunt. I built up a small stock of products in the spare time I had between jobs and would take them to the cheddar carboot sale. they have a flea market and other small business's there too and as it's only £9 a table the worse that could happen is I wouldn't sell anything. I took a few past products as well as some new ones and more business cards than I could possibly need. There were some interest and it was great to get some peoples positive reactions. I intend to go at the carboot at the end of each month taking more different products each time. Hopefully it will bring in not only some sales but further business too.

The very overdue update!!!.....

I must admit this is a very overdue update and I've been doing a lot in the past couple of months....

 First of all I should probably show you all the finished result of those wall brackets I was making. Because of a design error one of the rivets couldn't be fully tightened so I went back to the drawing board and designed the mark 2 version. In this version the middle part of the design has been changed still breaking up the negative space but also allowing no trouble to rivet the steel together. This design worked perfectly and the finished results looked amazing! 

 

 

 After completing the brackets I moved back to looking at developing a range of products that would sell easily. I started playing around with a candle stick holder design I quickly drew up to see how it would look the overall design didn't come out to badly and can be developed further but one section that caught my eye. I tried to shape a grip to hold the candle but it didn't quite work out the way I wanted it to but it the way it formed was the similarly to how you'd form a forged rose. I had never forged a rose before, But then I thought as a blacksmith I really give it a go.   

 After doing a few days of research on making roses, it's interesting to see how different blacksmiths have different takes on how to make a rose. Most Blacksmiths I have noticed use all ready made petal templates which you have to buy from the USA at around about £8 a set for one rose. But after digging deeper I found a great video online on forging a rose with petal templates you can make yourself. 

 Using this to make my own templates for the petals I had a go at making my own rose and result came out a lot better than even I expected. After that I continued to make more and I find them quite pleasant to make and started to add leaves and forge stands for them. I think they make great gifts for loved ones and close friends.

 

 

Garden bracket development

In the past couple of days I've been working on a set of garden wall brackets for a customer. This allowed me to produce a common product in my own aesthetic style. After a day of designing I came up with alot of ideas and after tweeking one of the idea that the customer liked this is the finshed design.

I looked at other forged bracket and looked at differences in design and form, most brackets follow the structure pattern with scrolls connecting it all together to give them strength. Applying a similar aspact with the bars in the middle of this design this should strengthen the bracket and stop it from deforming over time with hanging weight.

 

 As you can see from this photo I have almost finished a complete bracket. I'm at the drilling stage and have to drill nine more holes and then I will be constructing it, once this is completed I will be discussing the finish with the customer. I suspect it will be painted black instead of iron paste but it should look good once its on the wall. Will update further tomorrow.

Late but.... Finished!!!

I've been meaning to update everyone on me and work but I've been so busy and then I took six days off  to go to download festival, which I have to say was GODLIKE!!! so I haven't really had the time.

But I'm here now and I'm typing away so here the update. Before I went away to download I was just finishing off the cupcake stand and got to the final rivet which connected the legs together and it snapped inside which deformed one of the legs! I therefore had to take it apart to fix the deformed leg and forge a new rivet. I then went away to download festival for six days which I enjoyed alot and as music being a major part of my life and a huge inspiration to my work therefore I came back with the creative juices flowing straight on to paper.

I took no time in getting back in to the workshop to finish the cupcake stand and get it to the customer in time for the show where it will be used. It came out a lot better than I thought it would.  

Since working on this stand my business has kicked off as I'm now completely busy this month with six different jobs to work on. I'll need a second pair of hands soon to get it all this done haha. The next job I'm working on is a set of garden wall brackets and I'll be putting up images of the design for it very soon, after that I have a BBQ to make and many more other interesting products. So keep your eyes on this blog over the next month to see what I'll get up too.

Back to the cupcakes.....

First update of this month... Let us begin. I started making a set of commissioned cupcake stands but had to put them on the back burner while I worked on some stainless steel window brackets, which I've complete now. I am now back working on the stands and I have to say..... They are one the most complicated things I've ever had to make!!! with each stand having 35 components, 44 drilled holes and 25 rivets... All for a product that only stand 15 inch tall and 12 inches wide... Killer!!

But anyway I've been working on it now for nearly a week and am now at the construction stage and as you can see from the photos its going well. I hope by the end of week to have one fully made and the second one nearly at construction. So will update again very soon.