Lockdown has been many things for many people. Its been difficult, it’s been lonely and above all, it’s been boring. At Latham’s steel doors we tend to stick to what we do best; supply and manufacture steel security doors and fire exits. However, having had such a boring year, we couldn’t resist a custom request that came through for the fabrication, supply and fabrication of a 7ft steel willy to be delivered to someone’s house for their birthday.
After checking with the customer that the recipient was a friend of theirs and that this was intended to be a light hearted prank (as opposed to a vindictive act), we set about getting their requirements.
The brief was, unsurprisingly, simple. They wanted a product which:
- Was at least 7ft tall and delivered outside the house surreptitiously to ensure maximum visibility and embarrassment
- Was self standing and thick enough to make it difficult to get rid of
- Welded to make it difficult to take apart
- Engraved with a happy birthday message
- Wrapped with enough polystyrene balls so that, when opened, they’d have to clean that up too
- Galvanised so that they could keep it in their garden if they wanted to keep it
Again, we wouldn’t normally service these types of requests but thought it would provide some light-hearted relief for our warehouse and design staff as well as hopefully bringing a smile to the end recipient.
We documented the entire process for you in case you wanted to learn a little more about the steel fabrication process.
To begin with, the designs are planned and drawn on CAD. The resulting file is exported to our laser cutting machine which cuts the shape out of a flat sheet of steel.
The stencil left over from the laser machine.
Once the laser machine has finished, we’re left with two steel sheets in the required shape.
A video of the laser machine in process can be seen here:
The two steel sheets are then slotted together and welded. The big fan above is a custom extraction van to ensure fumes and debris are carried away safely.
Finally the gift is wrapped and delivered outside the recipients house, ready for them to find – hopefully a good few hours later.
We’re not sure he was entirely grateful though as we saw it on Facebook market a few hours later…
In the end our customer told us the recipient thought it was the funniest gift he’s ever received, our warehouse and design staff had had a bit of a laugh and, at least for a day, the lockdown boredom lull was temporarily received.
Whilst this isn’t something we’ll be adding to our product line any time soon, we pride ourselves on being able to manufacture and deliver most custom requirements.