metals student accomplishments

The Chair of my Department made this poster to highlight student accomplishments from the past year. 18 of the 25 exhibitions on this list came out of the Metals area. Alissa Goble had an exceptional year. I'm really glad the students are making good work and being recognized for their efforts.

 

silver soldering organization

Yesterday, I spent some time in the campus studio working on more organization. Our soldering bench has several shallow drawers and for the past year each drawer had a different item in it related to soldering. The drawer space was underutilized and honestly a mess. Plus students never put things back in the correct drawers. We used to get some nice pieces of multicolored HDPE donated by a company that makes kids playground equipment and so I used a piece of 3/4" HDPE and made a layout for all of our main silver soldering tools. I spent most of the afternoon tweaking the design while to piece was still on the router only to take the first piece off and discover that my containers of flux were not inset deep enough to close the drawer..ugh. Oh well, the torch tip recesses were over cut by the time I nailed down the outline, so I fixed the depth of cut and recut a new piece at the end of the day. I test fit this piece this morning and I am cutting a second one for our other soldering bench top drawer. Now we'll have more storage space in the rest of the drawers. I need to start my Metals studio improvements and tools website with file downloads for all of these things so people can have the files to modify and use for their studios. Someday...

Also, side-thought: these kinds of projects are super gratifying. Maybe it's because I feel like this piece should be around for a while and be used at least for as long as I am teaching here. It should also help with teaching and I'll feel better when I'm not hunting for a tool when I'm trying to demonstrate something. Over the years it feels like these kinds of jobs are the filler between personal projects. Regardless, it's good to do these things.

 

velocipede WIP

I installed my Work In Progress Velocipede in the Staystack residency exhibition at the start of the week. I also made some renderings that shoe some possible finishes. I don't think I'm actually going to do an anodized like finish in all one color like the rendering above, but it was cool to play around and start to think about this. I still have a lot to do, but I spent some time thinking about what this object represents to me. Again, I still don't have this all fleshed out, but the text below is the start of some ideas I have at the moment.

This work-in-progress jeweler’s saw is a reinterpretation and evolution of an 1870s pedal-powered velocipede scroll saw made by W. F. & J. Barnes in Rockford, Illinois; my home state. My fascination with tools is rooted in the agrarian landscape of my youth, where tractors and farm implements first sparked a deep appreciation for mechanical purpose and physical labor. Part functional tool, part kinetic sculpture, this jeweler’s saw is created to be equal parts utility and art. It stands as a living archive of the places I’ve called home, weaving together my roots in Illinois farm machinery, Milwaukee metalwork and heavy industry, and Appalachian craft traditions into a human-powered machine that celebrates the empowering act of making your own tools to create something new. This project is a direct continuation of my early reverence for how things work and the meaning of labor.

The physical creation of this object spans distinct geographies and eras of my life. I began the piece by casting its initial aluminum frame in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where I was heavily influenced by the city's rich history of manufacturing and machine tools. Now, living and working in the rural Appalachian mountains of Boone, North Carolina, the project has taken on a new resonance by tapping into the region's deep traditions of craft, self-sufficiency, and the empowering act of making purposeful tools for personal use, independent of outside systems.

What you see here at the culmination of the Staystack residency is not a polished, finished product, but a vital stage in my creative process: the physical mock-up. While I design my work in CAD, my brain inherently resists finalizing details in a digital space. Digital modeling lacks the visceral connection; the ability to touch, handle, and physically interact with the weight and mechanics of a piece. During these two weeks, I designed new components for the tool, including the drive wheels, cranks, pedals, saw arms, and necessary functional mechanisms. I also smoothed the initial aluminum frame castings, created the mold pattern for the large drive wheel to cast it in bronze, machined the cranks, and began bringing all these pieces together.

To truly evaluate the design, function, and aesthetics of an object like this, I have to bring it into the physical world. A machine with dozens of interdependent parts requires full assembly to understand. Reaching this stage, where the cast bronze wheel, custom-machined components, and stand-in shafts are joined as a complete unit, allows me to step back and observe the object as a whole. It is only in this raw, assembled state that I can begin making the instinctual refinements that complete the piece.

The intensive two weeks of the Staystack residency have allowed me to bridge the gap between digital concept and physical reality, converging my history in Woodbury, Illinois; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Boone, North Carolina into a tangible, working draft ready for its next evolution.

studio improvements summer 2026

This summer I've been working on a few projects in the Metals studio on campus. I have a technical assistant, Sandy, who has been painting all of the ventilation hoods in the studio. When the building was remodeled, we moved back in about this time last year and the hoods were still the old brown that they had been years ago. We gained a few new hoods with the expansion of the studio, but for some reason some of the hoods were painted and some were not. It had been bothering me, but there just wasn't time to fix it during the school year. Well, with Sandy's work, we were finally able to rectify this. The large soldering hood, the chemical room hood, the enameling room hood, and the casting room hoods are all freshly painted. She also painted our forming table metal legs, and some shelving for me. What an improvement!

I also worked on the wall of hammers at the start of the summer by hanging metal pegboard and getting out hammers all hung. I still need to make some vinyl silhouettes but at least it's up and the hammers all have a home. I was able to purchase a new Bonny Doon press with electric pump. I am super stoked about this. And we were able to get a really nice Neutec JR-2 casting machine. I still have some work to get the proper wiring on this, but we are really starting to expand the tools that we have. We'll have a new Vcella kiln for our enameling area coming soon as well. I received a grant from the Enamelist Society for this new addition. 

We only have a few weeks before the new semester starts, but I've been working on getting everything ready. This sure beats last summer at the same time. We still weren't sure if we'd be moved in before classes started and we received occupancy the weekend before classes started. It was kind of a mess, so I feel like I'm finally getting things where they should be. I also rewrote all of the curriculum last year and the new Metals concentration starts this year. I'm thankful that our new leadership has a vision for what we might become and that things are improving for our students through the new programming and facility improvements that are happening. I can't wait to see what the new year brings.

 

"what's the point"/purpose

The publications from Goldsmith's Journal were formative for me, as I previously posted. This article by Gary Griffin was probably one of the most influential. When I think about what the professionals in the filed were doing to not only make work, but to promote knowledge, and advance the field of metalsmithing, I feel a little guilty. I don't feel like I've really done as much writing as I should have. I'm trying to understand why that is... 

On one hand, I feel like I disengaged from SNAG for a good portion of my early career as I tried to figure out how to deal with the demands of tenure. I was just worried about getting tenure and doing all the things my University expected. I also felt like I didn't really fit into SNAG all that well for some reason. It could have just been my introverted personality though. 

Now long after tenure and the academic hoops I've jumped through, I find myself drawn to the early ideas of the organization. I still don't feel like I fit in, but I like the idea of sharing knowledge and seeing what discoveries in processes and material can allow a person to create. I also like the idea of professional standards that people agree on. I find these professional standards at risk or vanishing in my own classroom, when students ask why glue is not an acceptable form of bringing pieces of metal together. I also worry about this when sloppy craft is featured in our current publications and then celebrated and promoted. Maybe I'm just old and opinionated though...

The balance of jewelry and functional objects in these early issues is also fascinating to me. I would say that I felt pressured in grad school to make jewelry, even though I moved farther and farther away from this as I continued in school. Object making became my comfort place. Maybe I liked these early issues because it felt like there was a balance between jewelry and object. I often wonder if the blacksmiths in our field feel excluded because of the heavy focus on jewelry. They honestly probably don't care and seek out ABANA or other avenues for their professional membership.

In discussions with Adam Hawk and Chad Bridgwater we have discussed some other venue or gathering for sharing information. I know both of them are invested in Digital Fabrication so this might be the common bond that brings a new group together. I know Digital Fabrication has interested me for some time now, but I find myself really just interested in learning new things. I guess that is the topic of this post. I just want to hang out with good people and make things and learn as much as I can about this material that allows for so many possibilities in creating new and interesting things. I'm not interested in personal image and how to create a persona and how to promote myself; I just want to learn more. I'm interested in the act of learning and passing that on and then seeing what an individual does with that knowledge.

Maybe this reflection will help me. On our daily walks, Jill and I have been discussing "what the point of all this is". In other words, why do I feel compelled to make things and "what's the point". I facetiously told her a day ago that I might just give it all up and sit and watch tv. She said that "just isn't who I am". She's right. I like to learn, and I need to remember that learning is the purpose. It's not just about process learning either. I get to learn about myself as a person and what it means to create for the purpose of bringing beauty into the world and its connection to the humanities. Now there is a future post to discuss: the purpose of the humanities in education, but I'll save that for another day...

 

goldsmith's journal

 

I guess I've been on a bit of a nostalgic trip this summer, but I guess that's just who I am. 

After realizing that the SNAG slide library is fully online, I also discovered the full list of publications from SNAG were also published. I was most interested in seeing the issues of Goldsmith's Journal. I have a few reprint issues of it in my personal collection of books and papers, but to have the full set was exciting to me. I downloaded PDFs yesterday so I could have the full collection. 

We had all of these issues in our Metals library at the University of Illinois. I loved the fact that we had a dedicated Metals library in our studio. It was a separate room that had a couple iMacs and a large library table where we would meet each week for our Metals Seminar to critique work. BUT the entire back wall of the room was covered by library shelving and it was filled with Metal publications; books, journals, papers, etc. I used to spend time going through these early journals of the organization looking for information that I wasn't aware of. I realize now how formative this was to my development and how much process and material knowledge drove and continues to drive my work. 

Deep down...I just want to learn and I enjoy learning. I am so glad that these early journals included technical knowledge along with completed accomplished work by professionals in the filed of metalsmithing. I can't wait to go back through these issues and see what I've missed.

hand powered scroll saw

 

hand powered scroll saw

table saw

 

Another good one...

foot powered saw

 

Ooh this is a good one; so simple...

velocipede in action

 

This is the kind of saw that my velocipede jewelers saw is based on.

treadle bandsaw

 

I came across this and thought it was interesting.

pizza

I made a few pizzas last night. The cheese sticks were pretty amazing. 

The last inch and half up to the crust on the cheese pizza was incredible in terms of flavor, but the dough up to that point was undercooked. 

Then the pepperoni pizza was overcooked as a result of me trying to make sure the dough was good. 

Lesson learned: cast iron cooks a pizza like this WAY better than my steel pan (at least in my oven). I still can't get my dough quite right. I think it may be the altitude messing with the recipe I'm using. The dough is not rising as much as it should and it's a bit too heavy. I think I need a higher water content too as this dough was dry and then I didn't get the pockets of air that I should have gotten inside the dough. The dough is going to take some tweaking. I do however like the addition of the wheat flour to my usual bread flour. It just gives it a little more flavor.

 

velocipede big wheel bore

Yesterday afternoon I was able to get the velocipede legs bored, a 3D printed bushing designed and made (that will be made in bronze), and the big cast wheel bored to the shaft size. I also made a "stand in/mock up" shaft that I could use to put things together. The bronze wheel is a hefty beast but the big diameter shaft supports it well. I think the big wheel should still be mounted on the rotary table on the Bridgeport and the outside trued slightly. I think it would just help the piece to function a bit more smoothly. I'd like to machine the small wheel this weekend if I can finalize the design.

It's interesting how an object like this requires so many different parts that have to come together for the object to function. For some reason, when I make things I need the piece to be capable of mock up stage, so I can see everything and then evaluate the design and "look" of things. I have the entire model in CAD, but my brain requires to be able to see the parts all fixed together to then make changes or additions to. This is the area where I think a piece gets better. This is why I just need to see the piece together regardless of everything being resolved. I also think this is why I like modifying existing objects so much. I'm not sure why, but I have had that desire from the time I was a kid. I always had this desire to stick an engine from one motorcycle into a different frame, or I wanted to combine different bicycle parts to build a completely unique bike. Where does that impulse come from? I need to think about this more...

It's like I need to see something as a complete unit so I can then modify it. This mock up stage is critical for me and I need to see this piece come together as a whole with all it's parts, regardless if they are going to be the final design or not. I just need to see this together as a whole as soon as possible. As I build things I feel like I get to a point where I have built all of these parts, I assemble them, and then I tear it all apart and restore it to final finish. This is the part of making that I enjoy and always have. 

Why can't CAD suffice for this "mock up" stage and then I'm just building parts and assembling them? I hate having to figure out details in CAD I guess. I want to do that part in the physical world instead. Seeing something, touching it, handling it, having a visceral response feels necessary to me. I would love to be a fly on the wall when iconic things were being built to see how the ideas developed. Have all of these iconic things been built from engineering plans/drawings on paper and then just emerged as a direct one to one of that object or did people have a chance to respond to the physical parts and let the object evolve as more parts were created? It's probably not really all that important, but I think about the call and response to making a lot more these days. This piece is reminding me of how I like to work and that IS important...to me. It's not fast nor is it efficient, but it's just the time it takes for me to be happy with what I'm making.