[Herefordshire] metalwork

[John Michaelson]

Hi matt,

The bus sounds interesting, could you bring some pictures to the next 
meeting?

My sister is a jeweller/silversmith up in Birmingham. I could ask her if she 
could recommend some good books about stone setting if you like.

I did the blacksmithing and metalwork course at the rural crafts college a 
couple of years ago, it covers blacksmithing, fabrication, fitting, 
technical drawing and mig, gas and stick welding. It’s a one year course and 
I’d highly recommend it. You can also do welding and blacksmithing as 
evening classes if you like.

Since leaving college I’ve done various jobs in the metal work trade. At one 
point I learnt how to use a cnc plasma cutter, which is a great bit of kit. 
You can design something in a cad program like autocad or the open source 
alternative qcad, save it as a dxf file and then feed it into the plasma 
cutter. The cutter can cut aluminium, steel or stainless up to 20mm thick. 
I’m pretty sure laser cutters use dxf files too.

Right now I am working at AH fabrication at the thorn estate 
(http://www.ahfabrications.com/products.htm ) . We make high quality 
aluminium radiatiors, tanks etc for race and rally teams. I’m trying to 
master tig welding ally with a footpedal, which is pretty tricky stuff, but 
I’ve nearly got it.

John