Today we step into the world of sheetmetal working! Again a nice workshop, as I am addicted to seeing all those great and interesting places which you usually never get to see. Good work requires expertise and this man I visited commits to that rule. He is an allround man concerning sheetmetal work, but he is also an engineer and designed and produced some of his own machines.

The man has a creative mind that blew me away. He makes all sorts of art with sheet metal, like for example a rocket-like set of chairs with table and a very cool prototype of a unique motorcycle, inspired by an old concept that never succeeded because it was too advanced for its time. Another fun thing, he makes steampunk items… Have you ever heard of it?

If you are inspired by his work and want to learn it yourself, he even gives workshops: how to make dies and how to make nice creations in sheetmetal, or a first step towards getting to know how to make a body for a car! When I visited the sheetmetal worker he gave me a tour around all of his machines and demonstrated how they work. Until then I had no idea how you can make a car body from straight plates of sheetmetal, but after that demonstration it looked quite simple… by the way it isn’t simple at all ; ) Oh, and mind you fingers! The Eckold hammering machines have no mercy, they are brutal things…

As you can see in the photographs, the workshop is filled with machines, one for every step in the process: pressing, bending, cutting, softening, straightening, etc!

One of the machines was a very old and special one… a manual press. This machine can press stamps into the metal while rotating the spindle by hand, but for the more heavy work he uses a hydraulic machine.

He has his own Peugeot 203 ‘commerciale’ project which was once a delivery van in France. He now wants to restore it and use it as his company car which sounds like a good way to advertise his business. He is so busy with other work, of which a lot of Porsche related, that he has had almost no time yet to start with this project. In the past he did complete bodies, but today he is happy doing only part restoration work, except that one project of his own…

It was again a great visit and of course I will continue to report on such trips! : )

Written by Rosemarijn Atalante Veenenbos