Custom Residential & Commercial Metalwork

Process

Foundation

Magma Metalworks is a small custom shop with a talented local network of craftsmen and industrial outsourcing which enables us to manage a wide array of custom needs in architectural and decorative metal design and fabrication. Erica Moody founded Magma in 2001 and has been working as a professional metal fabricator since 1994. Her initial creative focus was in the arts, specifically photography, and this creative and artistic foundation, combined with ten years of practical metal fabrication and design provides a distinguished chemistry bringing to her work technical precision, strength, efficiency, and beauty.

The Studio

Magma Metalworks is housed in an old industrial milly building, just North of downtown Boston, Massachusetts. The machines and tools we use are often vintage, yet powerful known giants of the trade. Our machine shop includes a 6 foot Logan lathe, a Bridgeport milling machine, a Bewo cold saw, a 12 ton press, a Kalamazoo horizontal bandsaw, a DoAll upright industrial bandsaw, a gear driven 1.5 hp drill press,, a Lincoln 355 TIG welder, a Lincoln Invertec 205 tig welder, an Industrial Baldor Buffer, and an oxy/acetylene gas torch. Combined with select hand tools and precise craftsmanship, our shop is able to provide superior finished products, in both form and function.

We have developed contacts with our industrial neighbors to include efficient specialized resources in machine forming, rolling, punching, CNC machining and cutting, industrial painting and finishing, CAD drawings, engineer consulting, production shops to satisfy higher volume requests, and fellow craftsmen of various trades able to contribute a variety of material options.

Materials

We work with mild steel, stainless, aluminum, brass, bronze and copper. We will also collaborate with craftsmen specializing in wood, glass, jewelry, and resin to complement some metal designs. We can explore numerous possibilities to suit your specific needs.

Methods

Fabrication methods used in-house include TIG welding, silver and soft soldering, machining, lathing, shaping by hand with hammers, files and abrasives, hot forging, custom patinas and wax finishes, and polishing. Careful attention is directed to efficient set-ups, precise parts and clean details.

Our design process often begins with a meeting on-site to discuss ideas and photograph locations, then we provide preliminary sketches and costs of various solutions. Once an idea is selected, we follow-up with detailed shop drawings and finalize the fabrication schedule.