An Approach to Metalwork Design

My interests are 1) using contemporary computing technologies to design metalwork and 2) using traditional techniques to fabricate it.

I focus on geometric designs inspired by graphs of mathematical functions.

I use Mathematica to create, analyze and graph functions because it is a powerful and flexible tool for exploring the infinite world of mathematics.

I use SketchUp to design metalwork because it is very easy to use, and it’s plugin architecture allows me to program extensions to draw the graphs and shapes I want.

Here is an example function and graph that I created in Mathematica:

That graph inspired this belt buckle design in SketchUp.  The tapered shapes in the design were drawn using plugins that I programmed.  See drawmetal.com for more information on the plugins.

Here is a photograph of the finished buckle.  It is hand forged and tig welded mild steel with a copper inlay.

I also use printouts of SketchUp models in the fabrication process itself.  Here is a printout that burned in several places when the hot forging was compared to the design.  The straight tapers on the right-hand side of the printout helped forge the two halves of the s-hook before bending them.

Here is a photograph of the finished s-hook.  It’s shape was inspired by a non-traditional spiral combined with a sine wave.  The hook is hand forged mild steel.