If you’re thinking you’d like to enhance your home or cottage with a classy custom metal house number sign — with your name included as well if you like — or a wonderful work of metal art to adorn an interior wall, you need the superb services of Bill and Mel Morfitt.
Not all that many years ago, Mel and Bill met and combined their hearts and talents, launching a tsunami of creativity that has yet to slow down.
Mel says Bill, a retired aircraft mechanic, "can do, build, anything... he’s amazing, and I have an interior design degree from the University of Manitoba faculty of architecture, so our plasma sign/art venture is the perfect combination of our skills and passions."
Mel still works full time at a day job, while very much looking forward to arriving home each day to invest her artistic and biz talents in the METALworks Architectural Products collaboration they run out of their home.
There was no business there when Mel first joined Bill at his home back around 2010.
Shortly after she moved in, Bill said, "Well honey, make it yours." She designed, Bill constructed, and the reno turned out great.
Mel was also aware of Bill’s love for working with metal, but her interest definitely perked up one day when he mentioned he’d started building a plasma table some years ago but never finished it.
"I still have it," he informed her. "It’s in my neighbour’s garage, been there for years." So they took a look, following which Mel explored Pinterest for plasma product ideas and immediately told Bill, "Oh my God, look at these! You should finish that table so we can design and manufacture this stuff!"
So Bill finished the table, ordered all the parts needed to make it a perfectly functioning plasma cutter, similar to a laser cutter, and by 2017, it was ready to rock. This guy CAN build anything!
Since then, they’ve had a ball combining their skills to produce some amazing metal signs and art, and the demand for their creations just keeps growing.
This is a very low-key, laid-back biz. Their marketing plan basically consists of word of mouth from happy customers, inspiring friends to contact Mel — she’s the people person, designer, "greeter" — who leads the customer through the consultation and design process, then it’s over to Bill for production.
Works like a charm.
I ask Bill what the range of plasma cut possibilities is, to which he replies, "Pretty much anything you can draw, we can cut."
The options are endless, including everything from stencils for use in labelling boxes/packages, to extraordinary wall art that I personally find just gorgeous.
Interior works can be left with the metal bare, but for outdoors, unless you’re after that rust effect, rust paints and even powder coating offer many colours and finishes that will protect your custom creation for decades to come.
The largest individual unit Bill can handle with the cutter is basically four feet by four feet. Their largest creation to date is a business sign that, when assembled, measures 15 ft. long by four ft. deep.
The standard metal thickness Bill works with is 14 gauge, but he happily tells me that when push comes to shove, his homemade plasma cutter can slice through three-quarter-inch metal, restricted only by his ability to lift it onto the table. Having had six hernia operations, I can relate.
Another of their finished works that I find really adorable is a raccoon face popped up over a neighbour’s fence. Human faces are a possibility too, "but you’d have to talk to Mel about that," Bill says. Good idea. Whatever plasma project you might have in mind, contact Mel at mel.dawn63@hotmail.com
Great work from a great team. So nice to see.
Comments or feedback, love to hear from you!
lmustard1948@gmail.com
