‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!’
That proverb is something we’ve all heard a few times in our lives. It reminds me of learning to ride a bike or play a sport as a little one, but these words of wisdom guide us daily here at Modern Metal.
Mistakes happen every day, big and small. The photo above captures a big one! We welded a brass grille and didn’t get the exact result we had in mind, to say the least. The grilles came out warped and flawed, causing us unprecedented stress. What is a mistake, though, if it isn’t a lesson? We learned very quickly that brass is a more delicate metal than steel, and needs to be braised. In order to fix these pieces we asked for help from Tim Folger of Folger and Burt Architectural Hardware and we found Dave Holsonback of Reification, a local artisan. Dave re-flanged the grilles then sent them back to the finisher, Gerber Hinge, to be stripped and refinished. All in all, we got the fixed grilles to our client in perfect condition, and have since received a repeat order from them, so I’d say it was a success!
Without this small bump in the road, we wouldn’t have all of the brass knowledge that we do today, and we would have never met Dave from Reification. Mistakes happen, but the lessons we learn from them are invaluable.
There is usually a silver lining…in this case brass!
