Glory Bound

Last weekend, I headed down to Kansas City for Mike Vallely's Glory Bound Skatepark Tour. It was epic...

Here's my review of the show coupled with an interview with the "Master of Disaster" Duane Peters (above)...

North Liberty deck addition & railing

For some reason Clint and I thought it would be a good idea for me to do this welding job in the middle of one of the hottest streaks this year during the hottest part of the day. After we were done today, I headed to Kum & Go and bought a store t-shirt to replace the totally drenched one on my back. This was miserable today...



The only existing railing was on the steps leading up to the stoop. We added the support post that is directly below the outside corner of the newly finished deck Clint added to the second floor. To the give the post a little more function, it now also acts as a railing post, with the addition of another right next to the house against the siding. All posts are 2 1/2" sq. tubing. The railing is 1" x 2" rect. tubing turned on edge. The homeowner will provide the finish via enamel paint.




Even though I could have gotten by using solid, mild steel MIG wire, I opted for .030 flux core wire with additional gas shielding. The welder was powered with a 5500W generator with a single 3-pole, 220V twist-lock outlet. We built a converter setup wiring a 50A receptacle into an L14-20 plug. My welder doesn't pull more than 20 amps, so I wasn't too concerned about overworking the generator, or tripping any breakers. The beads laid down looked pretty freakin' good. This made for a tidy little portable setup.




Thanks to Clint Haight of Custom Projects and Homes for taking the "action" pics of me under the hood.

Hot show, dude...hot

ISU - Oak/Elm dining hall shelves

Today's post is an update on the shelving being fabricated for ISU Dining in the newly renovated Oak/Elm Hall. Check out this entry from a couple of weeks ago for a drawing of the design.







Thanks goes out to Eric at Colony Heating and Air Conditioning for busting these oak and elm leaves out for me on Monday. Fast turnarounds rule. The leaves will be cold forged and welding to some vineyard bar under the shelf, running the length of the fixture. Again, go back to the drawing for a clearer explanation.

I drew these leaves in Adobe Illustrator CS5 and was able to save each as an AutoCAD .dwg. I absolutely love Adobe.



After not being able to find the shorty tri-pod my wife threw away, I improvised with a 1/4 x 20 bolt, Vise-Grips and my Jawhorse. For what? As if fabrication pictures aren't boring enough, I've been recording footage of myself in the highly entertaining act of fabricating on my Flip for a compilation video of this ISU job. We'll see how it turns out after installation is complete and I can edit all the clips together. I'm having a hard time coming up with an accompanying tune to go with welding, grinding, drilling etc....Any suggestions?

Gift - Kathy Svec

Here's a sculpture I was asked to do for Kathy Svec, formally of the Memorial Union at Iowa State University. I was handed a couple of pieces of stone and some wood used around the interior of the Union to construct a retirement gift. The above is what I came up with - the exterior facade of the north side of the Union by the water fountain.

Kathy did marketing, among other things, at the Union for 32 years if I'm correct. I had the pleasure of working in the building with Kathy for more years than a college degree should allow, but if nothing else, she ALWAYS had a smile on her face whenever I saw her. Not everybody was that way...just her.

Much love and longevity to her and husband, Dorian.

Tall-back chair

Here's a current drawing I threw together in Adobe Illustrator CS5. Like many others, I know Photoshop reasonably well, but never had the chance to dabble with Illustrator. This past week, I kind of threw myself into this drawing as a little crash-course.

This drawing is a takeoff of an Arts & Crafts chair featured in Judith Miller's exhaustive tome, Furniture. In keeping with period correctness, it's my intention to use as much quarter sawn white oak as possible. The legs may seem a bit chunky at 3" x 3" each, but with the back ones at nearly 5' tall, the height should put them into an appropriate proportion to the eye.

Construction will be pinned, mortise and tenon, though the pinning is not pictured in the drawing. I just need to finish up some paying jobs before I can get to this fun one. If you're interested in a set of four, I'd be willing to wheel and deal. Hit me up:

info at factoriifab dot com

"Book" book-ended shelf

I finished fabrication on this barn wood shelf on Friday. The books were inlaid about two inches deep to a snug fit without requiring any adhesive or fasteners. All that's left to do is construct an apparatus to hang the shelf on to give it a floating appearance. This particular piece is for my folks to replace my mother's outdated P. Buckley Moss ('80s anybody?!) prints. I can't wait to hang it for the two of them.

Coffee talk...

Coffee table above is 20" x 36" and about 18" tall. The lower section of the table will accommodate a shelf that I glued up earlier in the day. Entirely constructed of reclaimed barn wood with pinned, mortise and tenon joinery.


Both tables that will be for sale at Jazz In July art show on Tuesday.


Here's a bent wood, laminated coat rack constructed of maple, walnut and faced with zebrawood. Two gussets will be mounted right behind the face of the rack, just right and left of center. They will then meet on a lower mounting plate that attaches to the wall approximately 36" below the coat rack. The mounting holes are spaced 48" on center making installation into two studs easy...as long as you find them.

Some candies...

Not really any candies...but if you knew a Bosnian production manager that worked at Sticks named Ned, you'd get the joke. And I couldn't think of another title for this post.

Really, who IS the Squiggy though?


Above is a mock-up of one of two end tables for our house. Bethany and I picked out a piece of zebrawood last night at Woodsmith Store. The grain orientation can be really wild at times and makes power-planing difficult as the wood develops checking and chatter marks quite easily. I'll have my buddy, Toby, run these through his wide-belt sander to surface the tops. The frames are 1" square tubing that's been rusted and sprayed with polyurethane.



This is one of two reclaimed barn wood tables. The 1 1/2" thick table tops measure 20" x 36", with the one pictured above standing 34 1/2". Both are constructed with pinned mortise and tenon joinery, as shown below. The other table will be coffee table height.



It seems like I'm building everything in pairs these days, and this shelf is no exception. The books are actually going to be recessed into the wood and act as "book" bookends. The spines will be set back (as shown) so the recessed couple of inches won't be seen. These were inspired by Juxtaposed:Power from Blankblank. I can assure you mine won't be $3K...no kidding, follow the link.



Looking in my rearview mirror while leaving the shop, I had to pull over and take some pictures. This was around dusk, 8:56 p.m., as a nasty cell was rolling in...

Lots o' pieces this week...

Above are some drawings of some shelves I'm fabricating for ISU Dining in the newly renovated Oak-Elm dining hall. 1 1/2" square tubing with lots of vineyard bar and hand-forged oak and elm leaves.

One of three windows the shelves will be mounted within.


An upside-down mock-up of an occasional table made of reclaimed barn wood.


Above is a drawing of one of two signs being fabricated for the Memorial Union at ISU. The oak lumber below will be planed and glued up to 2' x 3'. This lumber was harvested on the grounds that used to exist just south of the Sun Room on the south side of the Union. The text on the sign will be cut from 3/16" mild steel and adhered to the wood with construction adhesive.

Zart! Gallery custom doors - installation

Well, a slight hiccup yesterday delayed the final installation of these doors. I'll own up to the oversight - it was mine.
When designing, planning or fabricating, I like to have small reveals. This means I wanted an ever so slight gap between the bottom of the door frames and the tiled floor in front of them. Well, I failed to account for the bowing in the tile. On Friday, the doors would only open a foot or so before becoming bound up. To remedy this, I had to cut out a 1" section on each of the vertical uprights, weld them back together and grind 'em smooth.

With that done late Friday night, I left them outside overnight to rust the bare metal areas I had just ground. DB helped with the install again today and everything went off without a hitch...like it was supposed to on Friday.

Above is the view from the gallery looking into the back area. Below is a shot looking out into the gallery. Zart 1312 owner, Maribeth Trevillyan, adorned the backsides of the doors with fabric in order to completely block off view into the back room. We'll get some pics of that in the near future...

Thanks to Maribeth, DB, Kevy and as always, Bob Wagaman(!) for their help/input/support in one form or the other...It's always appreciated...

Murturm observation tower

I saw this in a recent issue of Interior Design magazine. Apparently, the recently completed double-helix Murturm was built on the "no man's land" border between Austria and Yugoslavia that existed during the Cold War.

As a fabricator, I'm quite impressed with the sheer magnitude and geometry of this venture. At the top, you're standing 89' off the ground. Next trip to Europe will include a visit here...

Zart! Gallery custom doors - fabrication complete...

I was going to post some other pictures for the completed doors, but decided not to because 1.) the photos I took looked crappy and 2.) I'd hate to spoil the surprise of the actual installation going down tomorrow with D.B. Tune in tomorrow - same Ratt time, same Ratt channel!

"Maybe we can dance, dance, dance!"

Zart! Gallery custom doors III

Here was the progression of forging at the shop today. Needless to say, I'm beat. After forging the vineyard bar tomorrow, I'll begin assembly and then start oxidizing.

Cheers, all...

Zart! Gallery custom doors - II

Here are the trees I cut with a plasma torch (thanks, Kevy!) last week for the Zart! Gallery in downtown Des Moines. Some vineyard bar and a few hand-forged leaves will adorn the trees. Some forging of the trees is tomorrow's MO. The last pics have arrows pointing to the branches that will come out off of the door frame acting as the door handles. Should be pretty cool. Installation will be at the end of the week with D.B.

Zart! Gallery custom doors

This week's focus is on an installation of twin doors based on the above staircase by Stephen Bondi. The rough opening is 96" wide by 89 1/2" tall - shown below in the frame I fabricated today out of 1 1/2" 14 ga. sq. tubing. Each door will have a tree cut from 14 ga. hot-rolled steel and then forged to give the tree some texture and dimensional relief. Additionally, 5/16" and 1/2" diameter vineyard bar will be forged and wrapped around the tree branches with handmade, forged leaves. The door frame, trees and all adornments will be finished with a forced oxidation and sealed with a satin, oil-based polyurethane.