In May the first Tweedlove International Enduro took place. The International Enduro is a mountain bike race and is the main event of a two-week bike festival called Tweedlove held in Peebles each year. In seven years Tweedlove has grown to become the UKs biggest bike festival and attracts riders from all over the world. Being keen bikers ourselves we were asked to make the prizes for the event.
The brief was to make 30 trophies, 24 small ones covering the 8 rider categories and 6 larger ones for the fastest riders overall. The idea was to make up simple blocks of wood which would be laser engraved and inlayed with a stainless steel tab. We chose to use Sycamore as it’s close grain would allow for fine detail to be engraved, while it’s light colour would also provide a good contrast to the burnt finish of the laser engraving. The Sycamore was sourced from local hardwood suppliers The Wood Place near Carnwath who specialise in milling and drying Scottish hardwoods. Patrick who runs The Wood Place keeps a log (excuse the pun!) of where each tree that he mills comes from, so the provenance of all his timber is known. It turns out that the sycamore we used comes from a farm just outside Biggar, so very local indeed. Once the blocks had been sawn, planed and sanded it was off to Simon at Evergreen Studios in Edinburgh to get the laser engraving done. After the lasering work we inlayed the metal tabs first routing out a slot and then chiselling out the corners to give a perfect flush finish. Finally the blocks were finished in danish oil bringing out the timbers beautiful grain.
Preparing the Sycamore blocks for engraving.
Blocks back from being laser engraved.
Laser engraved stainless steel tabs.
Chiselling out recess for steel tabs.
Metal tabs glued in using epoxy resin.
The finished product.
And finally being awarded to the winners...
