Will Jones's blog

Tis a small thing, but.....

Church HandrailChurch Handrail

Installed a little handrail leading to the pulpit in our village church last week. Not much to it, but I kinda like it. Not least because, although I bitch every time I have to paint something a colour other than black, its actually a very pleasant change. This is actually my faux rust finish..not as shiny as the flash would have you believe!


Virus alert ? Don't open that last Jimmy16 Post !

The title was cryptic enough to make me take a look.....but 1) it's gobbledegook, and 2) after a few seconds my browser shut down "to protect my computer from this webpage" Don't quite know whether or


Firescreen

Just finished a nice little firescreen for a friend in the village. Late Christmas present for her husband..hope he likes it !


Magnetite ore ??

Suspect this is one of those times when if I'm asking the question, then the answer is I dont have the knowledge/experience for the job...but I like a challenge and am always looking for new ways to lose money !


Couple of new scuptures nearly ready!

These are fresh galvanized but are going to be painted faux rust !
There's a germinating seed in 1/8" steel, about 40" tall and a tree in 5/16", about 6'6". Dropped the tree on my foot first time I assembled it.


Forging Fleur de Lys railheads ?

Never had much luck forging nice, repeatable fleur de lys type heads on 1/2" square bar or similar...have a job to quote for, would like to avoid nasty welded on bought in railheads and wondered if anyone on here has any hints/tips?


BBQ time is here again !

Have already started getting this years requests for replacement bbq trays, grids et.c.- but this one's a bit more fun....a buddy of mine who I owed a favour or two wanted to turn this old (and massively heavy!)concrete mixer bowl into a barbie. And he didn't just want angle iron legs.....


Laugh or cry ?

Being a blacksmith does mean you have to desensitize yourself to the frequent misuse of words like "wrought iron" "blacksmith" "hand made by our craftsmen" et.c, but having been asked to reproduce some genuinely hand forged light fittings, I had a poke around the web last night to see what people were charging for off the shelf "period" lighting and came across this. Must be the most offensively misleading blurb I've come across yet to describe something glued together with a mig out of commercially available mass produced parts.


Home made picket twister.

Used my new toy for the first time commercially today, and feeling pretty damn pleased with myself ! Cost me £80.00 plus offcuts, and right now I'm doing 4 revolutions over 12" in 1/2" square, but It'll keep going till it shears the bar. I'm confident it'll twist 5/8" cold, but gonna make sure I get this job out the way before I push it too hard !


Mo dogs, mo trouble...

Can't believe my luck with dogs....after we lost our Irish Terrier at 20 months old we were hoping for a less traumatic time with the new recruit - a bedlington / jack russell terrier X - but this one broke her leg last week (or more accurately the deerhound broke her leg)..so she's held together by stainless steel rods, and pretty much confined to a cage till christmas.....which is tough on a 5 month old puppy. Glad we had her insured..£2,600.00 and counting !


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