So, having successfully made two motorcycle chassis, what's next? Well, 6 months into lockdown, I actually found a new job. It was very exciting, as I thought I was going to be unemployed for a long time since very few were hiring. However, after a few weeks, I had my doubts about whether this job was for me. After two months, I handed in my notice. Strangely, they talked me into staying. I think I agreed only because I had nothing else to do and nowhere else to go. But after two more months, I handed in my notice again. This time, they talked me into trying a different department. I agreed, but after a week, I had decided it was just not for me. There was never going to be a hands-on role that suited me. So, third time lucky, they accepted my notice. During my notice period, I consolidated all my pensions and felt I had enough to take early retirement, as long as I was careful with my money. Taking on a lodger in the spare room would help too.
I did not really know what I was going to do with all the time on my hands, especially as the madness of COVID-19 was still in full swing. Traveling was not an option. Then one night, after a conversation with an old friend about a TV program on the Japanese sword-smiths and how their work ethic was to spend their entire life seeking perfection and never feeling that they achieved it, how they would keep on regardless was admirable.
After finishing our conversation, I thought to myself that it would be fun to make a knife at home in my shed, maybe even a sword. All I needed was the metal. So I ordered some tool steel, using my old Black and Decker Workmate, I manufactured a filing jig, bought some fire bricks, made a makeshift furnace, and set out to make a Tanto-style knife. It took me 50 hours of filing the blade with my blunt old files. But I got there in the end. This turned into a major hobby, and since then, I have made hundreds of knives of all shapes and sizes, giving most of them away or selling them at cost to friends and relatives. I even had a go at forging Damascus steel and was quite successful. Then one evening, talking to my partner who lived in Cornwall on the moors, she said she wanted me to make her a weathervane. I wasn't very enthused by the idea and said I would think about it. That night, I woke up in the middle of the night and went down to the shed. I had an idea of making a weathervane from old motorcycle chains and sprockets, rummaged around, laid out some bits, and thought, "Yes, that will work." So the next day, I started on the weathervane. From there on, I got more involved in making all manner of things.
Most of these can be seen on my webpage www.mesmerisingmetal.co.uk
Also on my old Youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/@redwinecustomfabrications
New YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@mesmerisingmetal
Some of these wind features/whirligigs were extremely complicated, took hundreds of hours to make, and many sleepless nights trying to work out how to get them to work.
Again, some I gave away, and some I sold, never making any money. But that didn't matter; I just loved making these and the knives. Working as a production/manufacturing engineer, I never dealt with customers, so for me, the real payment was seeing the smiles on people's faces when they received one of my creations. My first knife customer, a very dear friend who still to this day tells me how phenomenal my knives are. I remember very well him asking me to make him a specific style knife. I only charged him for materials, and he insisted on paying double. I still make knives, but I no longer give them away. The jewellery was just a bit of fun, I made a spinner ring for something to do one day. Then quite a few friends asked if I could make them one.
Again, I sold them for cost and just enjoyed people's reactions to receiving something I made. The bracelet I made for someone very special in my life, someone who has encouraged me to set along the path I am on now.
So this is where I started making more creative things. This is the Kinetic sculpture phase. Just like the wind, I do not really know where it is going to blow and for how long. But it is a new beginning for me, and I am both excited and scared. 64 and setting up a business, WTF?
