Spain! (Part 5)

Today we went to a metal working shop that people from the workshop had found. This is the wrought iron type of place where they make railings and all types of custom metal work. They don't do much by machine however, unlike many of their contemporaries. It allows them to make completely insane works of art that go into peoples homes and businesses. Here's the workshop, at least the part that we were in most. There is a larger part to the left, but this is the interesting bit. That anvil weighs about 2000 lbs by the way... it sits on a tree stump.

This is the man who shared his work with us and told us what was up... at least he told Dane what was up and my Dad and I got some of it second hand. I wish I could remember his name. Actually, I need to get his name and email address from Dane so I can send him these pictures. Anyway, he was a great guy and had no problem talking to us about what he was doing... no problem at all. He talked a lot.

Here he is explaining to us why you can't use coal to BBQ. I believe the answer is: CANCER!

I like this picture a lot. This is him stoking the forge for us. Nothing more to say about this, just a nice picture.

Here's Dane getting the skinny. The guy would talk for twenty minutes, then Dane would say, "he's going to put the hot metal into the water to cool it off." Umm... I guess Spanish is a very inefficient language. I kid, I kid. Dane did a great job just keeping up with the guy. He was like a gatling gun of words.

Once he heated up the metal bar, he went at it with a hammer on that 2000 lb anvil, shaping it. He was amazingly skilled at getting this crazy hot piece of metal to do whatever he wanted.

This is the result. He tied the bar into a knot. I'm guessing it would take more than a day to learn how to do this... I could do it in photoshop. Does that count?

Sizzle.

This guy has awesome hands. I guess working with them for a living your whole life will do that.

Here's the final product. We asked if we could buy one of these knots from them, and they gave us one each. How awesome is that? I don't know what I'm going to do with it, but now I have a big metal knot. Pretty sweet.