Materials Heritage

by Russell Rowley

Britain has a long history of manufacturing prowess from Cartwright’s Spinning Jenny in Cromford to Abraham Darby III’s mass production of cast iron in Coalbrookdale using coke instead of charcoal. Britain’s engineers turned many of these products into beautiful functional items and structures such as the World’s first cast Iron Bridge with its unique iron carpentry joints which are very strong in compression.

Blott Works has taken this form and function using similar materials that celebrate our heritage whilst turning each piece into an art form that will look beautiful in any setting. They are robust and will last a lifetime with minimal care.

Background to the materials that make a Balance lamp

The Balance lamp is a very high-quality functional work of art with a story that takes us back through the crafts of time and balances gracefully towards the future. It also has a playfulness as can be set by the user into different balanced positions, invoking a seesaw of ideas to stimulate our minds, provide a break or change the projection of the light as we work.

It has a cast iron counterbalance at the top. Cast iron is made by taking naturally occurring ironstone and heating it to very high temperatures in a blast furnace, using limestone as a flux to draw off impurities. The red-hot flow from the furnace is called pig-iron.

The main arm is made from anodised aluminium which makes it lightweight and exceptionally resistant to corrosion and fading.

The balance and slider weights are made from brass. Brass is a beautiful shiny alloy of copper and zinc used for a variety of uses from musical instruments to door handles.

The cowl of the lamp is made from beech wood by turning it on a lathe. Beech wood is both hard, strong, and beautiful taken from sustainably managed forests. Beech trees provided seed or ‘mast’ for food when wild boar grazed in our woodlands and areas like the Chiltern beechwoods were famous for their chair makers, or bodgers, turning beech into chair legs. Hence to ‘bodge’ is to make only a part of a high-quality wooden product, not to make a mistake!

The rocker foot is made from thin layers of birch and oak wood using a clever process called lamination which is used in boatbuilding. To bend wood and keep it stable it either must be steamed and fixed into place or laminated by gluing thin layers together, which makes it stronger and more stable.

Birch is the pioneer tree in woodlands having been found in pollen records 10,000 years ago after the retreat of the last ice age. It is very flexible. Oak is the outer layer giving a toughness and contrast to the lighter coloured birch. Oak has been used for centuries for timber frame buildings and furniture for its incredible strength and beauty of grain.

So many beautiful, functional materials in one lamp, combining expert knowledge and design and engineering expertise for you to enjoy and become a talking point in your own stylish space.