Hope everyone had a fun and safe New Year’s! Now that we”re back from our winter break, I wanted to share with you all a recent project we worked on right before we closed down for the holidays. It was for a customer who was looking to have some custom shutter dogs made. Now to be honest, prior to this project I had no idea what a shutter dog was, (as I’m still learning about all the hardware and its use). And if you’re like me and you don’t know or didn’t know, shutter dogs were designed to hold wooden shutters open, but over time have become more of a decorative hardware piece.
When I was assigned the project, our customer wanted us to sketch out a design based off of his existing logo they had for their law firm. So I was given their business card and I began hand sketching my rendition of their logo. Once I was satisfied with the way it looked, I quickly transferred it over onto Illustrator and passed on the file over to our blacksmiths. Now I have to say that all the credit should go to our very talented blacksmiths, Terry and Darryl. Without them, none of this would of been possible.
The entire process took about 2 weeks to finish, mainly because our blacksmiths work from their shops in Tennessee and Ohio. The finished piece came out amazing and the customer couldn’t be happier. They measure about 3 1/2″ x 3 1/2″. We ended up making two versions of the hardware, one being the actual shutter dogs and the other to use as a paper weight.
So if you’ve enjoyed these shutter dogs as much as I have and you’re looking for something similar feel free to let us know, or if you already have an idea in mind, feel free to tell us about it! We’d be more than happy to help you out with your special project. I know I’ve had a lot of fun working on this project and look forward to working on more.
Horton Brasses, Inc. 