7th of March

Well been a slow day people, was mostly catching up on sleep or emailing people but i did manage to get some time to get the pictures i was speaking about taken.

Ive got some samples here i did in the forge i want to talk through.

These were the first samples of the day, using the method i knew well of forging the curve on the flat side of the bar, i was liking the shape but i felt i could do more with it so i tried above to use a top fuller and a bottom swage to put a ridge down the center see if that was the materail i wanted to shape sort of the line in steel form and i just didnt think it did it justice so i went over to something Ambrose said about going agansit the flat and bending flat bar on the side, its harder to get a smooth bend but looks nicer so i tried that.

This is the first sample i did on the side bending, as soon as i did i knew that this is the way i wanted this project to go. There is a real elegance and flow in the steel when its bent like this, your eye just follows the line along which really compliments my idea of the gradual line shape.

So i wanted experiment with it more so i made up two and fire welded them at the bottom to see a sort of layering effect to them.

As soon as i stepped back when it was done i fell in love with this piece, there is just something so pleasing to the eye the way two of this bars compliment each other when they are stacked together. On wednesday i really want to look into layering up more of these to see if i can work on my asethic a little more.

After i had done the piece above i had a little mess around with an idea that came to me while forging the first sample of the day.

I did a gradule twist in the center of the bar just to fill the space, its a really intresting idea but to me it just makes the line too busy and takes away from what im trying to bring the piece, a feeling of motion and the eye following a line. Im sure Adrian will disagree this isnt a good enough reason not to explore it further but there is just a gut feeling that this isnt the way for me to take this project adding twists into the mix.

Above is my two tutorails of the week, one with Ambrose and one with Adrian. I was skeptical about putting my idea to Adrian because i know he knows me and he knows what i can do and if he would have said me i couldnt make the gate in the time would have forced to go down another path but he sat me down and said i can do it but i need to get this design down and simple enough that im not making a really busy image wise gate. As for Ambrose he has really got on the idea of this gate and gave me some great tips for fixings and how to put it together, ive still got some way to go with the design but i can see it coming together in my head. Just need to get it down on paper now.

Dont know whether i will get a post up tommorow im tooling up in the forge with a big pair of hollow bit tongs and a butchers block hammer all day.