EDINBURGH IRONWORKS - BLACKSMITH PROFILES
Edinburgh Ironworks was founded in 1987 by Colin Thomasson as a general blacksmiths business, and became a partnership in 1989 when joined by Fraser McIntosh.
PROFILE - Colin Thomasson
1955 Born - Glasgow
1968 First motorcycle-Vellocette 350 MAC
1969 End of Steam Age
1971 End of civilisation, Britain goes decimal
1972 Joined British Rail
1980s B.SC. Aberdeen Uni, M.Sc. Reading Uni.
1987 Started Edinburgh-Ironworks
2003 Trained at Net Resources
PROFILE - Fraser McIntosh
1000 B.C. Start of the Iron Age1958 First Meccano set
1989 Became partner in EIW.
"Whether it is hand forged wrought iron or cutting edge design, we can make it. I am particularly interested in making unique pieces of work. The only limit to design is one's imagination."
EDINBURGH IRONWORKS - PROJECTS
Edinburgh Ironworks has undertaken many large scale projects over the years. Shown below is an example of one of them.
The Bishops Avenue Hampstead London
This was our first large commission, to build and erect two pairs of driveway gates and matching railings in-between. The gates were fully automated, being at either end of a U shaped entrance drive fronting the property. The address was one of the most prestigious in London, the Sultan of Brunei had a pad a couple of doors up the road.
The design was chosen by the client, from a Cosira design, or a Cosira inspired design, it had already been chosen when the client, architect, builders and blacksmiths all fell out over costs and it was all change, new architect, builder and blacksmiths.At the same time, the width of the gates was increased, and the height scaled up to suit. This also increased the size of the scrolls, leaves and other forgings, all of which required us to make new tooling as they were considerably bigger than anything we had made before.
The gates were hung on wrought iron pilasters but the drawings did not show details of the actual pivots so I took the opportunity to introduce a sliding top clasp pivot, held in place by a giant bolt(about 1 1/2" diameter) to enable fine adjustment whilst hanging, the bottom pivot point being somewhat uncertain as the automation was by underground hydraulic rams driving a shaft which the gates rested upon. This system turned out very well, being flexible enough to allow us to hang the gates extremely accurately.
As the job progressed, the client ordered a large wrought iron balustrade to the same design as the decorations on the gate tops to be built for the balcony one the first floor at the front, and another, to a different design at the rear. Also included were a matching pair of side pedestrian gates at either side of the property, adjoining the house itself.
All of this went very well and resulted in further orders at the same location, if you drive up the Bishops Avenue, Hampstead, you can see several more examples of Edinburgh Ironworks wrought ironwork, and we also put in a fair old bit of internal works and structural works as well.