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!

Lamb's House and Culross projects

So here are a few more pictures of the gates at Lamb's House which Jim took the last time he was out on site. He's done a lot of work for the interior of the house as well, but that was before I started to work for him. As for the gates, my job was pretty much just assisting in the installation. It was a great project to work on though and the house itself has been beautifully restored so if you are ever in the area, go and have a look!

Here are the 'small' gates (which to a small person like myself are still pretty big).

And here are a few photographs of the bigger gates.

Another project that I worked on recently was a set of gates which were for a National Trust property in Culross. Jim had a workshop with the kids from Culross Primary to get some ideas for the design and I think they really enjoyed it. The final design incorporated stylised medlar fruits which I had a lot of fun making...after a lot of trial and error on the most efficient way to make them. I also had more tapers to forge so with all this practice I'm getting a lot faster at making them.

So here are the medlar fruits being made (they were welded together by Jim).

And here are some photographs of the finished gates.

Here's a close up of the latch. Jim likes to make sure that the latches on all of his gates fit in with the design so they don't interfere with the overall aesthetic.

So that was a great project to be a part of and I would strongly recommend a visit to the Royal Burgh of Culross because it is apparently one of the most complete examples in Scotland of a Royal Burgh of the 17th and 18th Century.

Now, here I want to introduce you to the newest member of the team. This is...TITAN!

I know what you're thinking...why make such a big deal about a vacuum cleaner? Well for those of you who don't know me, I like to think that I'm one of the cleanest blacksmiths in the country, so having Titan to help out with the dust on site after an installation or just having a clean out of the workspace is just fantastic.
However...
I don't actually get to use Titan very much because I tend to get carried away with cleaning and forget about the work I'm supposed to be doing...

I also got very excited the other day about another gift for the workshop. In fact I think my exact words were 'Christmas has come early, yaaaaaay!!!'. This was in reaction to these...

I've been looking for some nice leather work gloves for a while so THANK YOU JIM for finding these and letting me have a pair! It's pretty cold in the workshop so these are great and it also stops little scrapes from the ends of bars.

So that's what's been happening recently and in my next post I'll put up some pictures of the projects we're currently working on. I know I keep saying this, but I've been wanting to wait a bit so I can get some good photographs of the pieces nearly finished.

I'll say take care here and also if you're near Edinburgh anytime soon, check out the Christmas market at Princess Street Gardens. I was there last night and it was fantastic!

More Work...

So, here are some more pictures from work.

This was one of the pieces that were made for Lambs House in Leith. I don't have any pictures of the set of gates, but here's some of the claire-voie going in.

Pretty impressive building isn't it? Well I found out recently that my granny grew up in the building just around the corner! Small World...

The next piece was great to work on and I got plenty of practice forging tapers. This was a set of handrails for a house near Edinburgh which look absolutely beautiful!

Here are the finished bars ready to be cut to size then carefully placed and welded onto the MASSIVE jig that was set up in the workshop. 

Here is a couple of pictures of my boss lining up the bars to weld into place. A lot of thought goes into pieces like this because it has to look right from a number of different angles.

This is everything coming together and a nice one of the welding process!

And this is everything back from the galvanisers.

And finally some photographs from on site of everything fitting into place!

Luckily we had some pretty good weather to fit everything and I think it really compliments the house. This is one of my favourite pieces that I've worked on so far, but we're working on a couple of very interesting projects at the moment, so I'll keep you posted on how they're going.

I think that's me nearly up to date on the things I've been working on, so hopefully the next post will be about the current projects!

Take care!

Saint Cecilia Saturday...

So...
Today is Saint Cecilia's day. Saint Cecilia is the patroness of musicians and on this day each year I deliberately don't play or listen to music so that the next day I can appreciate it all the more.

 I had a long drive this morning and it was really hard not to sing in my head or think about making up a few tunes on the way! I guess I just wanted to make a point that it really is a huge part of my life and I'm so glad it provides me with inspiration and happiness.

Here's a track for the day. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IzoiqDaG4A

Take care and have a happy weekend