Last fall we created a steel range hood with hand-forged strapping for a local home. Kyle built this steel roller to fabricate the curve in the sheet metal. Check out a few photos of the rest of the process below! Click on any of the images to enlarge.
We were commissioned to create a forged window grill for the front door of a house in the Fan, a historic district here in our home base of Richmond, VA. This piece incorporated a lot of traditional forging techniques.
The framing had traditional mortis and tenon joints. The tenon was forged on the end of the bar using a top-and-bottom die on the anvil. Next Kyle used a monkey tool to clean up the shoulder of the tenon. This allows for a clean joint when the pieces are put together.
Here Kyle and his assistant are forging the scrolls for the grill, first on the power hammer and then over the horn of the anvil.
Detail shot of a pass-through joint in the framing of the grill.
Starting to come together!
Our Railroad Spike Coat Rack is one of our favorite designs. It's a little bit different from other forged railroad spikes out there. From the loaded-down version at our house, we can tell you this is a workhorse of a coat rack. And we love the story behind the material used to create them.
Two things we love about Richmond are the plentiful trains and the James River. Unfortunately, a lot of debris from the railroads ends up in the river. We help clean up the river by collecting some of that debris. Then we turn it into something beautiful!
Bucket of railroad spikes fresh from river.
The first step in creating our coat racks is to draw out each spike. Kyle heats them in the forge, then uses the hammer & anvil to make the spike longer and thinner. This shape creates the elegant line of the finished piece.
There ya have it! The bent hooks are then welded together to create the coat racks.
A few coat racks in production.
Here's the Railroad Spike Coat Rack in the two standard sizes we offer. One of the great things about the design is that it's easily customized. We've made it with more or less spikes and in symmetrical pairs. We've even considered turning it on its side!
