Rod Northcutt
Rochester, New York
The A-Team
Bench
metalsmiting tools (hammers, cabinet, mandrels, pump drill, sawframes,
holdfasts, anvils/stakes, etc.) made from re-purposed, found materials
(discarded signs, broken rat-trap, nails, hammer head, allen wrenches,
automotive steel, fire nozzel, etc.)
New tools don't have to be expensive—their potential exists all around us, in the streets, alleys, and empty lots. Repurposing materials and objects for "making" is not only responsible but can be a pleasure, not to mention it allows you to know your bench more intimately. Traditional recycling often involves cast-off designed objects being crushed, milled, or otherwise cut up either to be mixed with binders to form cohesive solids or melted to form new analogs of the original material. While this often requires great energy and labor (the antithesis of lean design) it also forms a substance that may have the same chemical components of the original but seldom the same physical characteristics. Re-using material in its primary form, however, maintains these unique and useful affordances. In the case of these tools, all assembled from found materials, the energy required to adapt the materials is not superfluous— it IS the craft that the tools support by their function,
and even their existence
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