The stately oak trees that lined the well-manicured drive would become a much larger part of our lives at the shop I could have imagined on my first trip down a new clients drive.
The young couple wanted a custom railing for an upstairs porch that conveyed a personal feel to the estate. We kicked around a few ideas but the conversation kept coming back to the beautiful oaks that lined the entrance. So I threw out the idea of forging an acorn in the balusters and possibly working in an oak leaf in the design.
Back at the shop we worked out a set of dies to forge the acorns balusters. Each 36” baluster started from a 10 inch piece of round stock that was heated to 2,000 degrees and forged in the dies with our Nazel power hammer.
Once the center was finished in the dies, the ends were drawn out to finish it.
One design challenge for the railing were the columns. The railing had to attach to the front to accommodate screens that would roll down from the ceiling. With little nod to the Art Deco era, the design of the semicircular floating rail sections solved that problem and gave us a new design element that we would use with the next project.
The clients were happy with the rails which is why we have a Part 2 coming next!