Our Capabilities

   Most of our work requires us to have experience with many different types of materials and processes. This is a great advantage to our architectural clients in designing complex and innovative work because a single fabricating shop can take full responsibility for executing difficult work involving disparate materials.

   Because of our broad experience in fabricating with stone, wood, metals, glass, skins, plastics, and many other materials we can incorporate each of these in the same body of work with equal precision. Our broad knowledge of the nature of these materials brings all these materials together in the same piece without conflict.

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	Below are some descriptions of what we do, and the kinds of materials we do it with.
	Wood Veneering    We use any veneers of any thicknesses. We veneer on flats, rounds, and curves.
	Wood Carving and Turning     Any wood can be carved or turned. 3-dimensional carvings are difficult to specify on paper and often require an artistic collaboration between the architect and us.
	Wood Joinery    This is the traditional solid-wood joinery designs that have nowadays evolved into decorative work; dovetails, finger joints, etc.
	Wood Finishing    Oils, Waxes, Shellac, French Polish, Lacquers, Varnishes, Polyesters, Urethanes, Epoxies, Catalyzed Finishes, and Baked Coatings
	Stainless Steels      There are 3 common stainless steel alloys we work with, commonly available in 26 shapes and forms
	Hot Rolled Steels    These are also known as "structural steel", commonly available in 25 shapes and forms
	Wrought Iron    This is not a metallurgical alloy, but rather a method by which regular iron is worked, making it strong and resistant to damage.
	Cold Finished Steels    These are produced to a better finish and higher precision than other steels, commonly available in 10 shapes and forms.
	Aluminum    There are 29 commonly available shapes and forms of this metal, both structural shapes and architectural shapes.
	Copper Alloys     Coppers Brasses Bronzes Copper-nickels Nickel-silvers    This is a confusing group. They are all "alloys" of copper and another metal such as zinc (brass) or tin (bronze). However, there are 40 commonly available alloys of copper, including white-bronze, red brass, admiralty metal, beryllium copper, etc. To add to the confusion, some alloys commonly called "brass" are actually bronzes, some bronzes are actually brass, and each alloy is regularly available only in a restricted set of shapes and forms. Some alloys are available in sheet and not in bar, some are available in bar and not in tubing, some are available in tubing but not in angles or channels, etc.
	Stone     We work with all types - from marbles and granites to semi-precious and occasionally precious stones. We can diamond-cut, grind and polish all stones to specification but usually contract out the standard stonework to the source that supplies the stone. We then modify or dress the work to its finished condition and incorporate it into the finished piece.
	Glass     We don't blow or cast glass. We work in the realm of scientific, decorative, and standard plate glasses only. We can cut, grind, bevel, drill, and polish glass if we need to but normally we produce the templates for the glass supplier to do this. In this way we ensure that we get the glass produced to the precision we need, then incorporate the finished glass into the final assembly of the piece we're working on. This does require experience with optical adhesives and appropriate fasteners. The same goes for bent glass and tempered glass. We do etching and sandblasting if it's needed, though most architects already have relationships with glass artists that handle this for them.
	Ivory     This is a restricted material, available in authentic form from antique stock or from fossil sources. Readily carved and worked, we use this for accents in larger work.
	Abalone and Mother of Pearl    We use shell in fine inlaid woodwork (intarsia) and inlaid stonework (pietra dura).
	Gilding    Gold leaf, Silver leaf, Copper leaf, Imitation Gold leaf, and Imitation Silver leaf.
	Chemical Finishes     This is a process by which the surface of steel, stainless steel, bronze, brass, and any other reactive metals can be uniformly colored by controlled application of chemicals. This is different from Patina, which is a much more interpretive discipline producing an artistic effect. The colors vary with metal and chemical, but range from deep purples and reds to browns and light straw to dark black. They are delicate finishes applied to completed works of metal.
	Platings     Gold Silver Brass Copper Tin Nickel Black Nickel Smoked Nickel Chrome Rhodium     We don't plate in-house. It's a toxic and complex industrial process requiring alot of equipment specifically devoted to the process. We send our fabricated work to an appropriate plating factory for plating, returning it here for final finishing.    However, plating, which is simply a super-thin coating of one metal coating another metal, requires the pre-plated piece to be fabricated to very specific tolerances and finish. What is produced on the surface of the pre-plated item will be re-produced on the plated item. Plating doesn't hide features of the work, it accentuates them.    In addition, only certain metals can be plated with certain plating processes, and the plating tanks of different platings as well as different plating companies are all of different sizes which seriously limits what types of work can be plated with which types of platings.
	Anodizing        This is a process for colorizing the surface of aluminum and titanium only. Unlike a coating the process retains the surface luster and surface finish of the metal. However, like plating it is a toxic process that requires large industrial equipment. But also, like plating, the pre-anodized piece must be fully fabricated including prior to the anodizing, so
	Plastics    There are thousands. Most familiar are laminates (Formica, etc) and acrylics (Plexiglas, etc), but we work with all plastics, rubbers, phenols, and other synthetics.
	Lead, Zinc, Tin      We do work with these, but rarely, and in the case of lead it is toxic and must be treated correctly.
	Gold and Silver      Expensive, of course, and as most of our work is larger than jewelery-size we use these in limited quantity.