The Latest BD Sign Is Done and Installed!

Photo Courtesy of Sandra Salvas

The Monday before Thanksgiving last year (meaning 2013 since I haven't posted since November of last year), I installed (with plenty of help) the new BD sign. I'm quite happy with how it turned out… and how it looked in the snow in early December. My legacy of slowly adding my touch to the BD campus continues to grow. I couldn't be prouder.

And on January 10, 2014, I celebrated my 20th anniversary at Black Diamond. Proud of that too! It's been a great couple of decades with my BD family and I look forward to more…

New Black Diamond Sign Close to Completion

I've been working for the past few weeks (months really, sorry Dennis ;-) on a new sign for Black Diamond, where I've proudly worked for nearly 20 years. Over the years I've done tables, signs, reception desks, etc. for the company and I'm excited to add this latest creation to the mix.

It doesn't look like 35+ hours of work to me but... that wee icon alone has over 43 FEET of welded and ground seams. Just sayin'...

After 2+ hours in the dental chair this morning (yes, I KNOW, nobody's fault but mine!), I got up and with some strong support from Mike, Rick and Juan, we put the new sign in place in its raw steel form, at least for a few minutes. Just had the B and the D in place for scale, today. But rest assured it WILL have the full name when it's done. Grin.

Now that I know it's going to work as intended, that it looks good in its place and that all the bits slide into their receivers easily, it's off to the powder coater on Monday. I'll post another shot here of the finished product in black & silver when it gets installed later this month.

The Daily Grind

And we're not talking about 10 hours at the office or a cup of coffee. Fortunately it's not REALLY a daily occurrence. One secret they don't let you in on when you decide to work in steel as an artistic expression is the amount of grinding involved. If you're doing fabrication or 3D volumes, it goes up even more.

Having just finished a new sign for BD this weekend that took about 100 sanding discs and 15 hours of grinding (more on this project soon!), I thought this photo summed up the past few weekends AND steelwork in general. The photo is by my good buddy Gary who was visiting in 2012.

It Was a Clock Tower...

...now it's an ICON Tower (well, arguably it still has two clocks as opposed to the original four, but you get my drift). A few weeks ago I watched the construction crew put up two new BD icons that I had built. The clocks came down and the icons went up. The old clock tower is the tallest structure on the Black Diamond campus. I'm honored to have been asked to tackle this project and very happy with the outcome (and so are the pigeons, apparently...).

 


Above are a couple of shots of the install. The guys did a perfect job.

And a sadly blurry shot of the raw steel icon in my shop before the bolts were welded on and it was sent off for sandblasting and powder coating.