Hello all, thanks for having me.

[HeelerMC]

Hey folks,

This is Matt, I've been a designer / fabricator for almost 20 years.

As a kid I wanted to be a panelbeater, and began my journey with metals in school making hand-formed hollowform sculpture. I built my own english wheel from scrap, and it seems to work well enough. I've never used a "real" one, so I don't know the difference.

The years went on, I ended up spending many years in the Architectural Metals world, I was the lead fabricator and "Special Projects" coordinator at a premier shop for a few years. I was the lead machinist and quality control for all of the high-end architectural kinetics we built. I loved that work.

In 2023 I took the leap and went on my own, started Heeler MetalCraft, and am chasing the work that got me under the hood in the first place. So I'm dusting off my wheel and shot bag, searching for my teardrop mallets, and getting that knowledge and muscle memory back in shape... literally.

I know I'll have some questions along the way as I start to re-tool my shop for this type of work. Mainly, I'm interested in building a reciprocating hammer (poor-man's pullmax or Kraftformer) to take some of the strain off my body.. I'm not getting younger. I'm planning to work as long as I can, so I'm looking to be smart about how I age in the Craft.

Anyway, hope you all are well, stoked to be a part of the community, and I hope I have some insight I can offer to someone out there and repay any questions I ask of you all.