New pics on my site.

Hey!
I just went down to a customers house today to finish up some items. I finally got some pics of the railing and the copper cladding we did. I think it looks much better in real life. Pardon the dirt. She has been doing a lot of construction work and the rails need to be rewaxed and polished.
www.artisansoftheanvil.com/gallery
Click on the new projects and then let me know what you think.
It is a design by a student of Gaudi named Jujol. What the rest of his name is I havent the faintest. Anyway, the customer supplied a photo from 192? and we did our best to provide. It is not a style in my comfort zone and so was quite frustrating. One of my employees at the time did the redseign and preproduction work. Unfortunately he left to get his masters degree before we started production. Aaaaargh! I was stuck making the work. By the time i was done, I had learned to go outside my comfort zone and even learned to appreciate "loose" ironwork. I have seen a few others try their hand at this rail. The photo (the one the customer supplied) must have been in Architectural digest because I have seen two versions in the Anvils ring since we did this rail.
I would love to hear your opinions on this.
Andrew

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I think that it is beautiful.

Love the work.
I checked out all the images and thought for a moment that you guys were a bunch of stuffed shirts...
Fortunately I saw the comic gallery, and am glad to say that you're a bunch of loons like the rest of us :-D
Regards Charles
Andrew Molinaro wrote:
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Hahahahaha. Us stuffed? Well maybe, but we certainly spend as much time picking on ourselves as we do picking on others. I think that balances out on some cosmic scale.
I became rediculously pretentions and snooty about smithing over the years. Only recently (past 2 years or so) have I become more laid back. I have been reminded O so many times how little I know that I think it has gotten into my head.
We are always being idiots in the shop and I am always trying to take smithing seriously. *It is a bit of a dichotomy but thta is the way life is. I see a lot of crap that people think is smithing I feel responsible to maintain some sort of dignity in the craft. In the states anybody who picks up a hammer and hits a (often not) hot peice of metal calls himself a master. It kind of makes me sick. I have learned to bite my tongue and encourage people instead of rip on them.....except for my apprentices. Someday though i am going to pull a "Kramer" and get myself in a whole lot of trouble.
OK rant done. Now you really think I am a "stuffed shirt". Don't let it get out. My wife will be devastated.
Andrew
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Andrew Molinaro wrote:
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Hi Andrew,
I was looking at your work and it's huge (huge being good).
I've never been snooty, as I don't consider myself comfortable with blacksmithing yet... I'm more of a cutler anyway so there's still lots for me to learn.
However I would only consider myself an expert in leather work, as I've been doing it for a long time and there's not much "new" for me to learn. I have been called master, but it's usually by people that want to employ me, and not pay my hourly rate for this skill set.
One day I hope to be as comfortable with hot metal as I am with leather (geez that sounds kinky), and of course the woodwork is coming along nicely also ;-)
Keep up the excellent work, and keep it documented so us poor schlubs can have something to aspire to.
Regards Charles P.S. Got an inflated ego the other day, one of my knives was shown to an experienced knife maker. He said "This is a good knife... is the maker known"... still floating a bit :-)

Good work. Like the mixture of bending stamping and smithing.
Martin Martin H. Eastburn @ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net NRA LOH & Endowment Member NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder IHMSA and NRA Metallic Silhouette maker & member http://lufkinced.com /
Andrew Molinaro wrote:
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