Feeling blue...?

So it's now nearing the end of week two and I've still not been back to work which is rubbish and to be perfectly honest I'm getting bored and lonely and fed up.
I had a physio appointment the other day and got some sport tape on my ankle to help support it a bit as I ended up twisting it (which was quite sore and didn't help the healing process) because the muscles/tendons/ligaments are still weak. It's great because it means I feel a little bit steadier so can start to put a bit of weight on it and it covers up all the bruising which is still gathering at my heel!

So that's been making me feel a bit blue, however a couple of things have cheered me up. First off I've been doing a little bit of sketching for the next project I'll be helping with. Hopefully I'll get in to work next week and me and Jim can do a bit of designing together and come up with something that incorporates the clients ideas. I'm pretty excited for that because it's been a while since I've done any proper sketching and will be good to get feedback from another artist.

Secondly, I found something today which has pretty much made my day. I haven't been able to do much (in fact I haven't even been outside today...) so I was having a sort through my sketchbooks and paperwork and found a gift my Summer boss gave me last year. It's a lovely printed copy of 'The Great Book of Gaelic'. Now, when I got it I didn't want to crease the pages so stored it away in a plastic folder and haven't taken it out until now.

Inside I found this...

Which contained this...

Which may have brought a tear to my eye.

I can't put into words how guilty I feel for not finding this last year, or how thankful I am that I found it when I was feeling so low. It's lovely to read such kind words and to know that I worked hard enough to deserve this note of thanks (and a rather large bonus!).

Anyway, so that's my news so far. Not a lot about blacksmithing, but hopefully I will be back to the workshop soon with pictures of the piece I wanted to share with you. I was really sad not to have seen its return from the galvanisers, or help with cleaning it up before painting...but I hope to see it soon and do what I can to help get this piece installed!

Here's some photographs of a few parts of the piece...

As you can see, there's some stamps involved and they were made by Jim specifically for this project. I thought it was going to be pretty tricky getting them to stamp nice and clearly, but they turned out beautifully!

So that's all for now and I promise the next post will reveal the whole thing!

Take care, be careful and bye for now.

Forging Mountains...

...and mountains of chairs!!

Yes, more chairs, and this time Jim gave me a hand making up a set of jigs to make sure all the components are the same. I haven't had the best of times making the chair frames in the past...however with these new jigs it's been so much easier matching up each half and welding everything together.

So now it's just where to put them so they're out the way...

I also got the chance to make a lovely house name sign which incorporates the silhouette of the mountains in the area. There wasn't actually any forging involved, but I got some more practice with the plasma cutter!

So that was a nice little project in between the big ones.

Here's a sneak preview of part of the next project that will hopefully be installed soon and I can show you exactly what we've (mostly Jim) been working on!

Very excited to see everything together...

Anyway, on to the bad news.

I've actually been off most of the week because I hurt my ankle pretty badly last Sunday. I had an amazing birthday weekend with friends, went for an awesome walk at Tentsmuir beach...

...did a lot of jumping...

Then decided to join my friends at the climbing center. This was also awesome, right up until the last minute when I should have stopped and instead went into the bouldering section and had a really awkward fall.

So now my right ankle is twice the size of my left...

and is pretty badly bruised and it hurts. A lot. Most importantly though is that I CAN'T GET MY SHOES ON LET ALONE WORK BOOTS! (Or drive safely...)

So I haven't been into work because I feel I would be a safety hazard and not actually be able to do much as I'm supposed to keep icing it and slowly increasing the amount of weight I should put on it.

Not the best week I have to say and Jim if you're reading this, I am sorry for injuring myself...again.

I will be back on Monday and ready to work extra hard!!

So, that's about all my news for now.

Take care and have a good weekend :)

It's all about the Christmas Tree...

So...
December and January went by far too quickly for me, but so far this Winter has been amazing!

I'm sure Jim will agree that I got far too excited almost every day on the run up to the Christmas holidays but Winter is my favourite time of the year...

Just before the holidays I got a bit of welding instruction from a trained welder who was passing by on how to vertically weld some pretty heavy material so that it's up to a safe standard for bearing a lot of weight. The way he explained was to use the 'Christmas Tree' method, so it really is all about the Christmas Tree!

Moving on...

So the last project was a piece for Dumbreck Court. I think the design is really nice and I feel very lucky to have worked on it.
Here are a lot of pictures of everything going together...

 Some lovely lettering in an art nouveau style as the design is in the same style.

 These are some of the pieces for the top of the right hand posts which have been cut out using the new plasma cutter (which is fantastic!).

 And here they are after sanding.

 Unfortunately it got dark pretty early, so there was a bit of night welding...

 It was also pretty cold so there was a lot of frosty mornings and cold hands...

 

 Shiny...

 And that's it finally going up on site!

We'll be going back out on site to get a few more photographs when the weather is a bit nicer. I'm told it was freezing and raining...so not the best of days to be putting up a big, cold steel archway...
I have to come clean and admit I wasn't there when this went in because I was very, very lucky enough to have a week away in France snowboarding with my friends because I have such an amazing boss! (Thank you again Jim)

So here's a few of my favourite photographs from the holiday.
The team...

 Neil

 Amy

 Me...

And here's some more...

So that was an awesome holiday, made me really happy and ready to get back to work!! (Thank you guys for a really memorable and super fun holiday)

I'm going to wait a bit to post pictures of the other project I've been helping with so I can show you the finished piece, but that will be after it comes back from the galvanisers.

For now, take care and have a good week!