Scrapyard Heaven

I had driven past this place over a year ago in deepest Devon, glimpsed it and made a mental note to come back - it did not disappoint! This is my kind of heaven, I get so overwhelmed I cant look properly because it's such a feast for the eyes. I took along visiting sculptor friend Gloria Carlos; a fellow hunter of interesting objects.

I'm already looking forward to my next visit. I need a small heavy object to weight a table standing piece and there must be something here.

I wonder how many old family run places like this there are left. It reminds me of where I started out decades ago searching at the long gone Paramount Metals yard in Brixton, south London. Things I found there dictated how my chandeliers evolved; aluminium bar and ball chain, the latter they always let me have for free as it rusted, it was for pulling blinds and ended up there attached to the aluminium top frame and became such a useful component for me.

Being a countryside scrapyard there was plenty of old farm stuff, a huge plough, rabbit traps, saws, stirrups etc and we admired this handsome 'Perfect' root cutter which sliced beetroot and the like apparently, for livestock.

And this is some of the treasure I came home with; several circular, useful looking objects amongst other stuff and I was so happy to find lots of weathered chain, not too heavy duty. I don't like new shiny chain and it's hard to find old stuff just when I need it, especially the matt figure of eight links - they're so useful as I can open and close the links and use them as hooks and links. I think I shall be visiting this place regularly.

Booty

Arriving at the car boot sale in Devon shortly after the rain made shopping easy - most people had packed away, so a with a quick look round I found a nicely tarnished metal filigree dish for £1, it was probably more before the rain, and a collection of old pulleys for £2.50. I wonder of I'd have found these in a large sea of bric-a-brac. 

I use pulleys for my candle only chandeliers (scroll down) but I've never been keen to with electrical cable because of any movement in the connections, however it is perfectly possible if you use the right fixtures and you can buy electrical cable that also has a support cable in it to take weight.

I may use these for industrial effect rather than hoisting, I absolutely love all useful looking fixtures even if I haven't a clue what they do!

Stuff Matters

I finally started reading Stuff Matters by Mark Miodownik. Having heard him speak at Making Futures conference last year I had his book on my to read list and bought it here. One fantastic thing about it is that it's written in easy to understand English - not always so amongst academics. I've just read about the structure of metals and it is SO fascinating presumably because it's written by someone who is fascinated by how materials behave. 

I hadn't bothered to stop and think where we might be without the discovery of metals - back in the stone age using flint, wood and bone - so I'll just take a moment to honour the ancestors who discovered metal ore which lead to my massive collection of tin and aluminium treasures.