Types of Work

Ey up!

Here at Bionic Cat Blacksmiths, we don’t do the word ‘Can’t’. I make everything from hooks to wands, portraits to door handles, kraken tentacle pieces, scrying ball holders, Dragon and Alien Claw Items, replacement Victorian railings, chalices, LARP armour, the list just goes on! I love the ideas people come to me with, and I’ll always pull out all the stops to make sure you get exactly what you want.

Never settle for off the shelf: get beautiful bespoke hand made work, to your exact specifications.

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me for any questions, quotes or quibbles, and feel free to find my etsy shop on my website.

Leon Williamson

Bionic Cat Blacksmith

Hello. I’m Owen Phillips – Artist Blacksmith at Gate Foot Forge.

…and it’s all been something of an accident! A background in Industrial Design and 15 years doing graphics is a strange route into this profession, but here we are. From a childhood spent tinkering with things, a love of machining and metalwork at school and an Industrial Design degree furthering those skills and developing design and visualisation techniques, I was all set up for a career making stuff with my hands. Then I somehow fell into graphics and spent a decade and a half sitting on my arse staring at a screen.

It was only back in 2019 when the hobby – which was clearly a result of an itching desire to make stuff – began to get out of control and accidentally became my job!

How did I get here?

I have always made stuff with my hands. My childhood was spent taking things to bits, and making things out of the parts. Through school, the stuff I enjoyed most and ultimately succeeded at was the practical metalwork and woodwork under what they term as “Design and Technology” nowadays. I further developed these skills at University and then, for most of my adult life, space to tinker was always a limitation. That was until 2016 when I moved back into my childhood home in a little hamlet called Gate Foot. Finally I had a workshop space.

During one tinkering session, I ended up building a small forge in order to heat treat a blade for a knife project I was working on. On a whim, I shoved some metal in there to get it hot and bend it about and came out with my own hand-forged flint striker…. and a bit of a blacksmithing bug!

The little forge was replaced with a slightly bigger one and I began to bend more stuff about. I consumed books and YouTube videos and began to learn the traditional techniques that would latterly have been passed down, craftsmen to apprentice, for thousands of years.

Roll on Christmas 2019 and lots of my friends and family find themselves getting hand-forged trinkets as gifts, and the inevitable questions get asked; “are you selling these?”, “is this a new venture?”, etc. And I have to admit to myself I’m enjoying it a lot more than sitting and clicking at a screen – and the stuff isn’t coming out half bad. I resolve to try and spend a bit of time tinkering away and pushing it to see if it goes anywhere – while maintaining my freelance design job as regular income.

Then along came a little thing called COVID-19. My design work – for which my clients are mainly in the hospitality and events sectors, all but dries up. Strangely, while the world goes bananas, I have an opportunity to push the forge business ahead and see what happens…

…and it turned out that quite a lot of people wanted nice hand-forged things. The orders rolled in. Within a month I’m shipping products from my garage to the USA, Canada, Europe, Australia and have an order book with 3-weeks’ wait. I’ve re-invested most of the profit at the point back into tools and equipment and so haven’t quite broken even – but I have been only working half a week whilst childcare for a 2-year old isn’t available due to the lockdown.

Three months later, lockdown is easing. Nursery is open. I can work nearly a full week… my order book is still full, I have a full workshop of tools, and I appear to have accidentally become a blacksmith…

Not many people can say they genuinely love what they do for a living. I consider myself fortunate that I can get up in the morning, light my fires and spend my days working on a craft as old as the hills which I still consider to be some kind of magic.

I am an artist blacksmith, sculptor and writer of:
Artist Blacksmith Sculpture: The Art of Natural Metalwork

I have over 30 years experience and in that time I have been lucky enough to have been involved with many wonderful jobs, I particulary enjoy design and build jobs, I sometimes collaborate with other artists and enjoy restoration work. I like to think that even small jobs benefit from my design input. Please check me out on http://WWW.petercrownshaw.co.uk .

thank you for looking

Peter

SAW Forge is a traditional blacksmith operating out of ‘The Old Smithy’ in Mawnan Smith, Cornwall. We specialise in bespoke, traditional and contemporary metalwork, including interior furnishings, fireplaces, lighting, indoor/outdoor furniture, sculptures, forged tools, repairs and restorations.

We work with private clients and public bodies, taking on small and large scale commissions, using traditional hot and cold forging techniques dating back hundreds of years to create beautiful pieces of decorative and functional metalwork that will last generations. All our pieces are designed and hand crafted on site by our fully qualified blacksmith, Steven Wilson.

Professional Artist Blacksmith Melissa Cole (FWCB) produces bespoke contemporary designed metal work from her Wiltshire forge.
Working to commission for private clients and public art pieces, Melissa’s work has a distinctive style, rhythm and flow inspired by forms and lines found in natural spaces. Her work has a sense of movement which comes directly from the making processes of forging, each piece designed to fit the location and purpose.
Public work by Melissa can be found in Oxford, Plymouth, Chippenham, Swindon and in many schools across the South West. Smaller sculptural pieces can be viewed at her gallery alongside the forge and in exhibitions across the country.
Melissa also teaches private blacksmithing and sculptural metal work from her own forge and was a Short Course tutor at West Dean College.

Food and Beverage guy gone rogue.
Bladesmithing, tool refurbishment, sharpening and other forge works.
Based in Stanmer Park, Brighton.
beggsforgeworks@gmail.com

Paul Gilbert F.W.C.B Master Blacksmith