So I'm putting together a bid package for a driveway gate for a prospective customer.

They have a nice 2nd home here in the western NC mountains with a fair amount of the bear motif going on.

They want the plasma cut panel gate design to match a pool table lamp they have.

It's got grizzly bears on it. There are no grizzly in NC, save for a zoo.

<---Edited to add a smiley.

Do you like money?

Not giving the customer what he wants is a good way to loose his business. If you are going to be bothered by something, let it be that.

I have a decorative piece with a moose on it. And there haven't been moose in the Sierra Nevadas for a while.

I think you're over thinking this

I guess I forgot the smiley. It really doesn't bug me at all. Just looking for some playful banter.

When it came business, I let the homeowner have it however they so desired.

If the wife wanted her home to be the only house on the block with ridiculous Harbor Blue shingles in a subdivision of earth tones; then by God that's what I sold her.

Nevermind her house looked like an IHOP completed.

Yet another trap thread. Someone asks for opinions, people provide them, then others jump all over them for doing so.

PM sent

Yumping ? I dint see no stinkin' yumping.

Perfectionist??

You're both being judgmental.

Christian hater.

As long as he paid......I'd put horns and tits on that grizzly bear, if he wanted them.

Our black bears are as big as some Grizzly bears

Good grief, what can I add to a thread like this that has not already been covered?

I know;

You aren't really talking about a bear silhouette, you are actually talking about a cup of coffee aren't you.

My motto "the customer is always right and if not their money is".

next time blynyrd, don't forget the effing smiley.


Oh yeah...........

Cut in shapes of the male sex organs if that's what they want. It you want money it only matters what they want, you don't have to look at it every day, just till you finish the job.

IT HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU,BUILD IT THE WAY THEY WANT IT,PERIOD.IT IS NOT UP FOR DISCUSSION.

Well just to add insult to injury I sketched up the detail drawings for the custom gate post lamps last night while y'all were sharpening your pitch forks to skewer me.

She wants lamps with bear tracks on them. I drew black bear tracks.

S***'s gonna hit the fan now isn't it?

Meh, not so much. But I do like the stuff I can get with it.

<--- requisite smiley

Yeah, after 15 years of building ornamental iron I never cease to be amazed at things folks like.

<--- 2 smileys, just to be safe.

More like a perfectionist trapped in the body of someone too lazy to actually care.

<--- again, smiley. It's for the children's safety, for the children.

Never done that one, but some of the stuff I've built over the years has come close.

<--- more smiley's for goodness' sake.

pics?

Sorry already, geez.

<--- maybe we could get a Hanna Montana one and call it Smiley Cyrus.

Nope, but now that you mention it, it's time for a refill.

Cheers.

Maybe I should make it look like that "swimming penis with tentacles and testicles" warning sign from the other thread.

<--- Alright this s*** isn't so funny anymore. <--- OK, maybe it is.

<--- Nah, probably not.

But are we not discussing it right now?

Of course I'll never share this chat with the customer.

Do you have to own a Ferrari before you can hang a pic of one in your house?
Do you have to have kissed Kate Upton before you can hang her pic in your office?

Its just a picture.

By all means, let it bother you.

OK, maybe I exaggerated. Done a couple of deer heads, though.









And generic mountain scenes are fairly popular





[img]https://scontent-b-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/t1.0-9/1380051_10151803115054016_1131592044_n.jpg[/img]

Even did a farm once.

[img]https://scontent-a-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/t1.0-9/954866_10151589387804016_709179740_n.jpg[/img]

Same here.
When I was building houses I'd turn the dam thing upside down and make it a boat if that's what the homeowner wanted and their checks were good.

Most people driving by won't know the difference between Grizz and Black Bear anyway so what does it matter?

I did manage to buy a pretty neat old coffee mug in the shape of a bear at the Rocklea Market in Brisbane. How the hell it ever got there I will never know.

People hire contractors to do what THEY want done, not what HE wants done. If he won't do it, they go to someone else. It's their plan, their property, and their money. It's also at least partly a free country.

After all that I think they came out almost looking more like pigs than bears. What really mattered, of course, is that the home owner loved them.

Nice. Did you just make the gate or install as well?

Yeah, you can cry all the way to the bank....

I've been on both ends of this equation. When building out semi-custom home, I made decisions that I wish the general contractor had weighed in on and at least provided his perspective - like, I moved the fireplace from the corner to the center of the outside wall of the great room. I thought I was "balancing" out the wall, when in fact I had reduced my usable wallspace and crunched the furniture layout. But that was really about functionality.

In this case, I wouldn't overthink it and give the client what they want. Hell, I'd take a picture and add it to your work portfolio. We all have desires that may not necessarily be accurate against a certain scale. I'd give 'em the best danm grizzly bears I could craft.

Does it make it easier for you if you consider that NC >used< to have grizzlies?

I really like those railings with the mountain motif. I've never seen anything like it.

Years ago I learned if the boss tells you to mount a toilet on the ceiling mount the toilet on the ceiling.

Here's a sample of patterns & the link below has hundreds more for your perusal.
Might help you out with future projects.




http://www.steelf-x.com/ArtDesigns.html

Install, too. Except electronics, got a good l.v. guy on that.


Posts are 6" x 6" x 3/8" square tube set in, 3/4 yard each, of 4000 psi fiber reinforced concrete. Plus they have some brackets welded on below grade for added strength in the concrete.

Still have to finish the lights that top the gate posts. They'll be a pyramid topped cube with bear tracks cut out on 4 sides then lined with translucent acrylic.