Also a big F1 fan and love to play a bit of cricket, squash, or pool when I can … sometimes the odd round of embarrassingly bad golf!

I’m a lover of history and especially of industrial archaeology. Bygone eras of Brunel and Trevithick, steam, the railways, mills, canals and tramways … truly pioneering and captivating stuff. Can’t beat wandering around an old ruin trying to work out exactly what might once have stood where.

F.A.Q

How did you get started?

It was very random. I always liked fixing and making things, working with my hands ... cars, motorbikes, DIY ... 'fairly handy with a spanner' ... kind of thing. Finally I bought a welder a few years back with the idea of fixing something particular.

I had no idea where to source metal I could practise on but, by chance, I found half a bucket of cutlery at a car boot sale the very next weekend. It looked like a likely candidate and I set off home to scour YouTube.

'Welding for dummies' duly watched I proceeded to the workshop and began what would be an utterly appalling display of cutlery annihilation!

However ... a few hours in (incredibly), and with the loss of many fallen stainless steel heroes, I did manage to produce something ...

I'd reached in to the bucket and pulled out a ham fisted bunch of spoons which, just by complete chance, fell in to a shape that caught my eye. A 'face in the cloud' moment.

The beak, head ... back of a bird ... was it? It looked a bit like a Kingfisher. I 'tack welded' them together and messed around with it for an hour or few more. Add a bolt, a couple of nuts ... An utterly appalling piece of workmanship from an absolute first time out of the box novice! But ... a really important seed got planted.

(My sister / brother in law are the current guardians of this ... despite my relentless threats of total and utter angle grinder fuelled dismemberment ... it lives on!)

I jest really ... it's the thing that started all of this!)

What type of Welder do you use?

Q) MIG or TIG?!? .... A) Both!

I started with a gas MIG welder and still do the lions share of the construction processes with one, albeit a significantly improved model. It's capable of working with both the stainless steel, that cutlery is generally made of, and mild steel. Excellent for fast structural welds and just quickly adding material bulk that can be sculpted, refined and shaped in blending different pieces together.

I have also invested time in a TIG welder. Useful skills to learn and a lovely bit of kit. Capable of much more finesse than MIG as well as adding the ability to braze brass and copper. I've been using that to add new materials, colours and variety. New possibilities!

Are there really 100 spoons in the 'Predator'?

It’s quite an important piece to me and the answer is ‘yes ... almost!’ I think it's 94. It doesn't look like it but they are all hidden in there somewhere!

It was one of the first things I made, just four or five weeks after that first rough bird. It really came out of nowhere and I surprised myself with it. It was a monumental leap forward! Some fell in to place very quickly, but occasionally a single spoon would frustrate me for hours and require all manner of thinking and tinkering. (They often still do!)

It changed everything. Out of nowhere I felt like I'd made a piece of art or at least something a bit different, something kind of 'cool'. My mates were blown away by it and, having filmed and uploaded the making of it, there came some random further encouragement online.

A viral video sharing platform ‘People Are Awesome’ approached me and re-edited my long winded uploads, added a bit of music and basically gave me a lesson in how to put a watchable short video together.

I forgot about their request and was massively surprised one morning to wake up to hundreds of likes and comments from their Facebook page. Some 700,000 odd views in the critical first few days ! It blew my mind and got me wondering if I could do something with it.

Where do you get the cutlery from?

It's a never ending battle sourcing it, I go through a lot of cutlery! Car boots sales and charity shops of course online. Always reaching out trying to make connections!

I've learned plenty about cutlery in the last few years, this does not make for a riveting party conversation … but, strangely interesting  to me and certainly helps me narrow down what I'm looking for.

In larger pieces much of the intricate detailing comes from finds at my local scrap yard. It's always fun exploring the huge seas of assorted metals and machinery.

Where are you based?

I proudly live and work in the great county of Sussex, not far from the beautiful South Downs, Brighton and its awesome pier(s) and Starling murmurations.

and finally (of course!) …

Where can I buy a bird?

Easily the most asked question with a short answer of:

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With demand running so high right now I dislike the look of an online shop that is always sold out of everything! It’s more acceptable to me to instead offer an option where I can ‘get back to you when more are available’.

An email ‘nudge’ if you like, a notification of availability, often accompanied with an update on ‘the general goings on around here’.