John Wilson, Metal Shop Hoon
A man's IKEA, some welding required.
Meet John Wilson. He’s a welder, metal sculptor and art car builder from Roanoke, Virginia, who got his chops welding Burning Man creations that shoot a 20-foot radius of burning steel wool, and now creates the sort of novelty “found” furniture that belongs in any hoon’s man-cave without irony: end-tables crafted from stop signs, benches from Ford tailgates, repurposed interstate signage.
Specializing in pieces salvaged from junkyards and roadsides, he takes these otherwise worthless pieces of motoring detritus and turns them into furniture that is starkly beautiful, yet genuinely functional. Like the crankshaft table, a steel and aluminum grate supported by a solitary crankshaft. Or a railroad breakfast table, fashioned from a railroad crossing sign. How about a table made from computer chips? A bike rack made with an actual bicycle? Or a chair made from “No Parking” signs, perfect for taking revenge on one too many municipal side-street tickets?
"No Stopping Any Time..." on a chair. Irony!
These pieces have done surprisingly well for Wilson—the above chair sold for $500, enough to pay Wilson’s inevitable tow-zone parking ticket a couple times over. But if you talk to him in your best grown-up voice, he’ll custom-weld a table base and frame around your sign, paint or powdercoat everything, and laminate the sign with an epoxy resin that he says will make the colors “pop.” They won’t be cheap, mind, but you can rest assured that you won’t find a similar piece flat-packed and vacuum-sealed in the back of a neighbor’s Volvo.
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Use various engine internals for the pieces, add a metal chessboard to the top, and make use of the crankcase pedestal table. It is the perfect accessory to some of those multi-million dollar garages.
Fun fact: Not only does John make really cool stuff, he is also another long-time artcar crazy!
This is fantastic!
Speaking of flat pack furniture, I'm now living in an Ikea catalog. It's the downside to finishing a significant part of Project House Hell.
Is it like living the beginning of Fight Club? Fürni all around!
I now know what I should do with the outer driver's door skin from the CHP car dad's shop repaired all those years ago.
Looks like excellent craftsmanship with original ideas. I hope this does well for him.
I looked through his portfolio, and now I'm super curious about the "2 Million Dollar Table." (Or "milion" as he spells it.) It's priced at $6,000, so that makes me think that something in the materials was originally really expensive. The rubber table top? How would a 6' x 3'6" piece of rubber cost $2mm? I want to know the story! C'mon, John! Tell us why it's called that, please? I can't promise I'll buy it, but I'll at least buy you a beer.
Table in question:
http://www.wilsonhughesgallery.com/pages.php?cont…