This pinwheel design ran through a number of balustrades and several gates on this project. Our input to the design that we were presented with was to treat it, in so far as was feasible, as a series of forgings rather than as a fabrication. While in some ways this was not the easiest path to take there were definite advantages in not having to weld and finish in some very tight corners, and the overall effect was much more characterful than it would otherwise have been, without, I feel, losing any of its dignity.
These pictures follow the course of some of the elements of the balustrading through the workshop and touch, also, on the gates and some of their detailing.
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- cutting edge discussions
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- texturing session
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- pinwheel first stage
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- hot slotting
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- outer frames
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- typical pinwheel pre assembly
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- pressing into the frames
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- rivetting tenons
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- assembling full pinwheels into balustrade frames
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- rivetting frame tenons
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- drilling for copper rivets
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- copper rivetting primed frames together
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- finished balustrade section
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- the boss directing crating operations
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- crating
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- detail of system connecting central handles on the gates to the bolts in the heels of the gates
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- assembling one of the gate leaves
