Steel Fabrication with Sex Appeal

So Kev says to me, ‘We need to make steel fabrication sexy, we need to attract more business, we need to showcase what we do. Meet me downtown and I’ll show you what we are working on today. Oh and bring your camera!'

Great. Perfect. That’s just what I need to see, I’ve been to the workshop, which is full of . . . well, full of steel really, and big noisy machines that cut, bend and weld steel, all in the name of steel fabrication. This was a great opportunity to see for myself what can be done with this smelted iron.

I was enthusiastically greeted by Kev, he was keen to show me this little beauty - a box gutter, which looked bloody heavy, precariously resting on what could be best described as a railway worker’s trolley.

My enthusiasm for this long, cumbersome piece of metal probably did not match that of Kev’s, especially when I turned round and saw where it was going - high up on the wall. But, he said, it could not be fixed to the wall; they were going to have to somehow counter-balance it off the roof, which it was going to eventually join.

Are you still with me? No, me neither, I’m just nodding and making notes, thinking ‘Sexy, how do I make this sexy?’

If you know anything about Toowoomba, it is fast becoming very hipster with it’s artworks and alleyways, I was beginning to see that the metal work was destined to make a shelter over Toowoomba’s newest lane.

I have to admit, my heart did skip a beat as I walked to the far end of the alleyway, I turned at the end, looked back at the vision before me. I imagined (assisted by the delightful aroma coming from a nearby café) a brightly painted mural on the brick wall, music playing, people relaxing at café tables enjoying delicious food, all under the protective cover of a (somewhat sexy) roof, fabricated from steel; an alleyway for all seasons.

But, I hear the words echoing around my head. Make. Steel. Sexy. I head back to my car, with this mantra playing.

I turn around one last time for inspiration, I wonder . . .