Spring is in the air and the pile of scrap metal that is the byproduct of tailoring a few pounds of high alloy steel into the worlds most efficient and healthy mode of transport slowly continues to grow. It was always with dismay when I would toss into the barrel for the scrap man(maybe the wealthiest person I’ve associated over grease stained handshakes with) to collect by the hundred weight our discarded steel when I was working in mass production sheet metal manufacturing. I felt like it was a failure not to find purpose for even the smallest bits of something as wonderful as this strong yet malleable material that shined in the sun and smelled like blood. I managed to save some choice bits from the scrap bin but the big automated punch presses and milling machines produced what would amount to waste too rapidly for me to do too much about it but bid the pile farewell in the hopes that the recyclers would re-render the contents to find their way into something beautiful, with a better chance at becoming more than rust.
Since setting up my minimalist shop space in a former funeral parlor basement after a short hiatus from frame building I have gotten used to a much slower rate of production than the old factory. Made to order and entirely fabricated by hand tools the frames have trickled out the door over the last couple of years and the lengths of tubing and strips of cuttings that fell from the other side of the saw from the precious have collected in a few boxes below my work bench. Every once in a while a bit from the bin would be just the thing to serve an immediate purpose but for the most part I only peruse it when as a cash strapped snob, I want to give a gift a little more unique than what I could afford at the big box store and I would try to make something pretty by giving some time and attention to the discards.
Inspired by the curly locks of my sweet one, I drilled, cut, de-burred, and twisted some stainless steel into some simple jewelry for her birthday. I was lucky enough to attend the celebration of the nuptials by some of my contemporaries over the first warm sun soaked Saturday of the season this weekend, seeing the little trinket I’d made that was decorating my dates ears was a proud enough moment that I want to make more of these things. Why not, maybe I can make a buck at it, I don’t have to be as rich as a scrap metal guy but a couple extra dollars couldn’t hurt the cause. What do you say, for a pair of ear rings?
Wonder if I’ll have to re-brand to sell jewelry to ladies, BBW necklace is maybe too nearly an obscene google search.
