Best Gift

[colvinbackshop]

This is the BEST gift ever!

This past Christmas I got a great gift from my niece. It has to be one of, if not the, greatest gifts I've gotten over the years! Everybody that has seen it just says WOW! And I have to agree. I've talked about it and posted a picture at the Beer Barn, but I felt the need to share here on the forum too! Sorry if I'm off track here, but I really think this is WAY cool.

This is a 24" diameter cut steel herald mounted on a 28"x28" Cedar frame. It's not a copy of my "freelance" railroad herald, although I'm told that too can be done and I'm going to have one made, but it is a very highly detailed, custom and expertly cut piece of artwork related to my model railroading! Thank you loving niece Lori!

 

This was done by a local, small, upstart, cottage industry that can and will do all sort of custom design. If your interested: They have a web site (it was under construction when I went there) http://www.steelartists.com/ , a toll free number 866-858-4616 and an email [e-mail]

 

This truly is the coolest thing I've ever seen and is a great addition to my Trainroom endeavor! Not to mention letting everybody know where the "raod" is located!

[colvinbackshop]

For what ever it may be worth...I thought I should pass this along.

I got a question from one of the regulars at the Beer Barn regarding "protection" on this herald, seeing how I have it out-of-doors. I emailed Don, the steelart guy, and got this reply this morning:

Yes. They can be hung outside. First they get a Rustoleum primer coat
and then a double Rustoleum color coat. We paint after the mounting
holes are drilled. I don't think there will be much of a rust problem.
Eventually we will be powder coating our outside products but we are not
quite ready for that yet.

[twcenterprises]

That is one COOOOL piece of art.

FWIW, I've seen how these kind of things are made.  One company I used to make pick-ups from had (and manufactured) industrial laser cutting machines, costing anywhere from $1,000,000 and up.  I talked to one of the techs there, and he gave me a quick rundown of the machine.  The one he was using could (with the right laser tip) cut through 2" thick steel plates.  It could cut some of the most intricate designs, and with a finer tip, could cut with an accuracy of something like 1/10,000th of an inch (but not on the 2" thick stuff).  All one would have to do is load the right software onto your computer, do your design work (possibly simply import an image), and save your design work to disk.  The operator would simply load your artwork, run the conversion software, and save the cutting file to disk.  Then, when the job is ready, pop the disk in the machine, set up your steel (or brass, or aluminum, or copper, or plastic, or whatever), give the machine the material and thickness your working on, and let it go.  For the parts I was getting, it was cutting out of 1/4" steel, 14 parts to a sheet, and took roughly 20 minutes to do a sheet.  For small parts, it could take up to the better part of a day, there's a lot of cutting for a lot of small parts.

Brad