Free shipping starts now!
Till Sunday midnight, we ship everything that fits in 40 x 40 x 60 cm boxes for free to customers in Belgium, France, The Netherlands, Germany and Luxemburg.
We're opening our workshop during these days for the visitors of @horstartsandmusic . Come say hi, we've prepared a display of our recent work!
Free Shipping thursday to sunday!
Come visit our workshop during @horstartsandmusic * We'll show a few recent newbies and all of our classics. We can't phyisically sell you anything on site for festival safety reasons, but we do offer free shipping on most online sales during the festivities, also for those of you that didn't manage to secure a ticket.
*you need a ticket to acces us during these days. Free shipping on everything bought online that fits a 40x40x60 box and is in stock
From mock up to prototype.
These days we're working on a proposal for the lights of a long stay hotel. The brief encouraged us to work with the existing wiring of the large rooms, even if these had no provisions for overhead lighting. Not cutting new wall chases saves a lot of dust, noise en materials and also means the hotel can stay open during the works.
Central in our proposal is the idea to connect floor with ceiling by means of a slender tube that acts as a platform for three light sources and their switches. Lowest on the structure is a directional reading light. The middle drum shade provides soft atmospheric light, while the top is a bright uplighter that uses the ceiling as a reflector to provide general lighting.
Ultramarin Blue!
Anything produced in Western Europe in small batches, let alone from reused steel, is not going to be dirt cheap. Yet making things that are within the budget of as much people as possible is an important aspect of the Halfwerk project. This pushes us to be inventive.
For instance, coloured powder coating becomes significantly cheaper as orders grow bigger. So when we receive orders for custom colours that we like, we complement the paint job with pieces to be sold trough our website. The oven is heated, the powder is in the spray gun, a few dozen more pieces to be painted isn't going to increase cost by much. The only trouble is that many of our clients for custom seem to like the same few colours.
Now for the first time, we have Ultramarin Blue (RAL 5002) goods on our webshop.
New in our online shop! A small recipient for coins, keys and everything else that lingers in your pockets.
Made from surplus aluminised steel that we sourced from a bankruptcy. The material has superior heat reflectivity and is normally used for the production of exhausts.
We perforated the sheets on our punching press. The 'dent' was produced with our spinning lathe (after a lot of trial and error), and we're quite proud of that.
Steel comes in many grades. Some are stiffer, some are soft and easier to shape. Because our workshop uses exclusively reused steel, often we don't really know the characteristics of the sheets we process. For simple cutting, folding and spotwelding it does't really matter that much even.
But spinning steel on a lathe around a wooden form is a different can of worms. Not only does the type of steel greatly impact what can and cannot be made, the way the sheets have been cut also is a factor (the force of the punching press tends to harden the metal).
Finding extra elastic "DC06" steel on the secondary market is not impossible, but it does increase the challenge. Generally speaking, being tolerant and open to lots of variations is key. For instance, atm we're working our way trough a batch of aluminium coated steel specifically develloped for heat reflection (for instance in exhausts). If one was to look for that material specifically, chances are you can only buy it new. We sourced it in a bancruptcy auction at a good price and didn't think twice. But our designs make no use of the coating, it's just something we don't mind.
Back to the spinning lathe; unless we get lucky and find a suitable batch, we're gonna have to work the other way around. What simple shapes can be made using -any- quality of steel? The last picture shows the winner so far. Made from 0.7mm mild steel, with a rolled bead along the edge for increased rigidity. The research continues!
In Christian tradition, Easter is the celebration of the resurrection. So what better way to spend the Easter weekend than installing newly fabricated borders in stainless steel saved from scrap?
In a modest Brussels' garden, landscape architect @los_land_llschapll placed raised beds along the perimeter wall. They were fabricated by @halfwerk_ from stainless coil ends that are useless to industry.
The octagonal space will be the theater of yet another resurrection: a bluestone terras made entirely with waste from the dumpster of a stone import business. The Opus Incertum will be placed on gravel so rainwater can still percolate.
Did you know? Each Zig Zag is tested to make sure it can hold at least 2kg of oranges.
Design by @maarten.gielen.ok , produced locally from salvaged scrap metal on vintage machines.
Come celebrate spring with us and our neightbours next Sunday from 11am onwards at @asiatpark . Our workshop and showroom will be open. We'll also unpack this batch of 1970ies bubble glass lights that can be mounted as ceiling or wall lights. We've got 2 pallets of these. On Sunday they'll be 130€/pc cash and carry. What's left will be on our website beginning of next week at 160€/pc.
Cladding test combining 3 types of stainless steel waste: rough, bruched and bright annealed. The research continous with @aboutt.atelier and @ouest_architecture
