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Gallery

Custom Metal Work

Blacksmithing is the original craft of working with iron, going back thousands of years.

With a forge, steel is heated to 1200 degrees Celsius, hammered, bent and twisted into the beautiful shapes you see here. Although the tools have changed over time, many of the same techniques are still as efficient as thousands of years ago. With a mix of ancient and modern techniques I am working to create beauty with iron.

Railings & Fences

Designing railings like these and following the building codes is a challenge. Under the National building code of Canada there can be no opening bigger than a 4-inch circle in a railing. I don’t like using AI for design. I use my own mind, will and emotion in the layout instead of a robot. Playing with different logarithmic scroll patterns and putting them together is part of the fun. All the tooling necessary for hot forging, cold forming, and shaping the material is built in my own shop. In the end, I am happy and the customer is happy.

Memorial Tree

The leaves of this tree are forged by hand. Each leaf represents a person who donated money to the personal care home is Ste Rose du lac. The different colors of leaves are the natural temper colors of steel heated between 400- and 600-degrees Fahrenheit.

Giving Tree

Building a steel sculpture like this Elm tree was a challenge I thoroughly enjoyed. I'm grateful for the people from Ste Rose who sponsored the project, and my neighbor who helped me install it back in 2023. Every square inch is hammered into corrugated folds to mimic the bark of an Elm tree. The rust patina will gradually change over time. The oversize copper leaves will eventually change to a blue green color in the next 30 years, but it will still be beautiful. The committee I made the sculpture for decided to call it, The Giving Tree.

Forged Family Sculpture

Do you remember the story of Rudolf the red nosed reindeer? He didn’t fit in with the other reindeer because he was different.
I farmed for 30 years but I was different from other farmers.
I sat with them at the auction mart waiting for my cattle to be sold.
On the outside I looked the same. I dressed like them.
Meanwhile my brain was busy studying Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian man, and how Leonardo had discovered the balance of the human body in relation to the number Phi.
The next day I decided to forge some small human sculptures and used to Golden ratio to find the balance for arms, legs, head and torso. I took the small family and gathered them in a circle praying together. I sold the sculpture online a while later. Wish I still had it, so maybe it’s time to make another.

Fish Gate

If you drive through main street Dauphin you can find this gate in a wall facing the street. The owner wanted to do something creative with the stucco wall between his store and the neighboring store. He had the idea to open up the wall, let the light in, and design a gate to look like a Koi fish. This is what we came up with.

Forged Robin

A few years ago, I forged a robin out of a piece of 1.25" pipe. It was a fun project and since then I've enjoyed making birds. In this photo I'm adding texture to the tail to give the impression of feathers. Funny story; When I was five my big sister told me I could be anything I wanted to be when I grew up. I truly believed her, and decided when I grew up, I wanted to be a bird. Later on, I found out that's not how life works. I still really like the idea of flying though.

Sundial

The customer I made this for had a huge 13' diameter rock in their yard. They also had a heavy sun shaped cast iron piece from and auction sale. After putting our heads together, we came up with the idea using the rock and the cast iron piece to construct an eight-foot-tall sundial rooted to the rock.
The whole frame is in the shape of a large door with iron roots on each side anchoring the structure to the rock. Thirty-four steel pipes spread out in an array from the center of the cast iron piece emphasizing the symbol of the sun. The five-foot-long stainless-steel gnomon points to the North star.
As the sun shines the shadow is cast on the face of the cast iron telling solar time.
Stainless steel rods on the face mark the hours. The math got trickier since the customer wanted the structure on a bit of an angle facing south east. I enjoyed the challenge to properly calculate the positions of the hour marks and gnomon for our latitude.

Part way through the project this phrase from Genesis kept running through my head.

"As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease."

Occasional Table

This occasional table measures 20" tall with a 3/8" thick glass table top measuring 12" across. The steel base was forged under my power hammer. I designed special hammer dies for my power hammer which give the iron a bark like texture. The iron is clear coated with epoxy, a very durable high gloss finish.

Part of the reason why I made this piece is because I like the idea of things that stay beautiful in the midst of adversity. Like a piece of drift wood that has been beaten by the waves over a lifetime.

Power Hammer Forging

If you try any blacksmithing yourself you will eventually learn about power hammers. People soon find out they want to increase production without wearing out their arms. Early prototypes date back to 200 B.C. in China. The power hammer I use is homebuilt from things I had around the farm. In this photo I am forging a bark like texture into pipe for a branch chandelier.