A Little Reassurance.

My friend Bob came to me one day with a problem. He, as many Philadelphians can relate to, wanted a secure place to lock his bikes at home. With no room inside, he needed to resort to locking his two bikes outside. Oh, what luxury space can be.

I suggested the obvious...bike racks of course. Bob, however did not want to lock them on the street in front of his house. Rather, he wanted to lock them in the somewhat wide breezeway leading to his back yard. This way they could be safe, AND out of the elements. Good idea.

With little room to spare, I came up with a hitching post style bike rack for each bike. I wanted to keep them simple and to the point, while giving them a bit of style. Take a look.







These racks turned out well. They are simple and to the point, yet kind of elegant. I like 'em! What do you think?
EA-

Eye Candy Anyone?

I've had another request for eye appealing security windows. Eye Candy's Tim Sagges gave me a call with the question: "Can you do window bars that don't look like window bars?". I love a good challenge. "Of course I can."

See, Tim just expanded his small business from one store, to two. He recently opened a store in Liberties Walk, An ever growing entity in Northern Liberties, and he wants to protect his investment with class. He needs security bars across his six window storefront.

Tim, had shown me some examples of what he had seen and what he liked, colors, etc., then we went from there. With a little thought, some design time and a little artistic license, I came up with a set of drawings.


I went with a Mondrian style grid pattern. It's has a light feel, a flowing pattern and some style. This way the store has security with a sense of design, that overshadows the actual "window bars". They will also appear less static due to the hierarchy in grid pattern, giving an air of movement.


Tim liked the design... Yee-haw! That's cowboy for: Awesome! Now I just needed to figure out how to make it. Sometimes it's hard to translate a drawing into actual procedure. That definitely was the hardest part of this project. But, I figured it out and came up with a plan of action.

I wound up using 1 1/4" x 1/8" flat steel as the main material. Then, I laid out each window design with a grid pattern on my welding table. With the pattern set, I cut each piece to length, then actually slotted all the intersections. It was a little time consuming (maybe a little more than I would have liked), but the outcome was exactly what I wanted. Check it out.

After many, many hours and once again, lots of coffee... the process was dialed and the fabrication was complete. I slapped on a couple coats of color-matched paint and called it a day. I'm proud to say this one is a success. Take a look at the finished work.

Hey look, there's Tim.

The store looks great. The windows look great. Tim's Happy. I'm Happy. Another great project completed. So, if you want a closer look, go to the store and see for yourself.
EA-

Rays of Sunshine in the City

My Friend Ben needed some much needed protection for his basement windows. However, he didn't want it to look that way. So, I needed to make it functional, all while keeping it feeling positive.

After some thought and using an old railing that he had salvaged, we came up with a design that will do just that. It's nice to make something that hopefully will add some cheer and a feeling of security.
"What is it?" you ask.

A sunrise for a new day.

Those wavy pieces came from a railing that was about 80 yrs. old and destined for the scrap heap. It was satisfying to reuse them and I feel the final form is pleasing to the eye.
EA-

p.s.- some pics of the painted(most likely a much brighter color) and installed window's will be posted soon.

Blacksmithery...Why the Hell not?

My friend Beth, who is a wood worker, asked me if I could make a specific wood turning tool for her. See she needed a tool for turning out wooden bowls, cups, etc. After showing me a picture of what she needed, I agreed to think about it.

Having never really attempted this before, I was a little apprehensive about the whole process. See, Blacksmithery, is the process of forging iron or steel into objects. This is done by using tools to hammer, bend or cut the metal while extremely hot. This seemed to be a daunting task, but what the hell, I'll give it a shot.

First, I needed a proper hammer, to figure out my heat and to dust off the old anvil. Then I began my learning experience. After a couple test runs, and a lot of hammering... this is what I came up with. Check it out. You might just say it "turned" out well. Ha ha, sorry for the bad pun... I couldn't resist.

Thanks for taking a look. For more info on Blacksmithery, check out www.anvilfire.com

Theft and Necessity

At this point, the work is starting to roll in and become a bit more steady. This is a nice feeling. So, one morning I walk out to my truck to go pick up supplies... and then a not so nice feeling comes over me. I can't find my truck. Did I forget where I parked it? I mean, that is a possibility. I walk to the other side of my building... still no truck. Dammit! Walk back over to where I originally thought it was parked and then I see what happened...

Just like many times before, riding my bike through the rough neighborhood in which I live in good ol' Philadelphia. You have to watch out for the all too often broken bottle or... piles of broken window glass from a car that used to be there. My Truck, has been STOLEN! Ahhhhhhhhh!!!

Apparently the night before a bunch of cars on my street were vandalized and stolen. My truck being one of them. So I called the cops and filled out the report. Nothing else I could do. The officer that took my report said I would probably get it back, just not in the same condition. I.E. totally screwed up.

So I waited a few days, decided to start looking for it on my own, with no luck. After about a week I decided to move on and start looking for another. As soon as I made peace with It being gone...I got a phone call. They found my truck! Turns out whoever stole it, decided to return it a half block away from my building. Weird huh?

When I picked it up, I was surprised that it wasn't in that bad of shape. They broke the driver side window and stabbed my center console with a screwdriver about 50 times when they couldn't get the CD player out. Jerks. But that was about it. Oh they also stole my old school B&M hot rod shift knob and the original(it was in the glove box). Turns out that finding a shift knob for a Toyota pickup in a junkyard in Philly is impossible.


So after cleaning up all the glass, replacing the window and piecing together my stabbed and broken console... I was still short a shift knob. Time to fabricate. In homage to my old shift knob, I decided to do something classic and made out of steel. So here it is:

It's my new handmade custom hollow steel Black Die shift knob. Looks cool and I think it makes my truck faster too!