We still don’t have a sales team, or do anything other than word of mouth and the internet. Well why fix what ain’t broke, or more importantly, doesn’t cost that much?

But I still find it kinda cool that the biggest paying job we’ve had thus far online came from a company just across the road in Colne. Boundary Mill, situated right next to Asda in Colne, were moving just across the road as they’d more than outgrown their existing premises and had built a brand spanking new set.

Apparently, all the needed was a full set of stainless steel planters to look nice and shiny on their restaurant balcony looking out over Pendle Hill. As you may have gathered by now, there’s little chance you’re going to drive up and down Burnley Road and passing Butler Sheetmetal HQ thinking there’s a blossoming planter operation going on.

They had been doing their homework online – like any reasonable business should in this day and age – to find somebody in the UK who could fabricate them some stainless steel planters. I’ve no idea if they found us though this site or through Tinpot Alley, but either way, it didn’t take them too long to work out that we’d be fairly cheap on the old delivery front. We could just get Jasper to handball them down the road if needs be.

I suppose the point is that they came across us online and thought we might be worth contacting before they found out walking round would’ve been as quick as firing off an email. And that cheers me up no end.

Anyway, less gassing and more pictures:

Large circular stainless steel planter.

Custom rectangular stainless steel planter

Planters with nice balcony view.

I’ve got a load more planter pictures that I’ll be putting up onto flickr once they’ve swept up.

So, it’s kind of important that you find half decent companies that have a remote idea as to what they’re supposed to be doing. We don’t have any in-house facilities for powder coating, so any planters that require a colour need to be done elsewhere.

The Butler boys recently did a rather large planter job for somebody in London and I think I recall the odd email between the powder coating firm and John fizzing through my inbox. I got an email last week with a few pictures of the planters leaving the powder coaters – Trevon Industrial Finishings in Colne. And, as John succinctly put it in his correspondence: “They really pulled us out of the shit with this one and did a fantastic job.”

Faint praise indeed. Now I have quite a pedantic eye when it comes to finishes, and I have to say that pictures do show a very good paint job. And the bottom line is that the customer is awfully pleased as well and will be sending us even more pictures once they’ve been planted up.

You see, it’s all well and good taking credit for a job well done, but on this one Trevon obviously went above and beyond the call of duty and really helped us out to the point that we’d have been in quite a hole otherwise. The customer isn’t going to care where you get the things painted, powder-coated, or finished. All they care about is the finish once they receive the finished article(s) – and quite right too.

It’s just that you might not be deserving of all the credit lavished upon you. Unless we deserve a pat on the back for sourcing the best industrial finishings company this side of Manchester that is.

The one thing to say in my praise is that at least I’ve finished one prior to the planter season kicking off. I normally time a Tinpot Alley release just in time for Bonfire Night or something.

Anyway, I’d appreciate any feedback if anything seems slightly off-kilter.

Thanks.

The world can be divided into two types of people – those whose think the above is a Buckminster Fullerene and those who think it’s a football.

And those who think it’s just an overpriced planter.

Visit our sister site, Tinpot Alley, to view more stainless steel and metal planters.

We’re unable to service any American enquiries from over here, so it’d be ideal for me to find a fabricator with the kind of experience and quality to cobble together our planters and other bespoke metalwork.

Most of our current planter enquiries are custom made-to-measure but you wouldn’t have to deal with those as that’d be my bag. You’d only have to deal with me.

I do have a sample somewhere to be able to show you, but the current fabrication required involves lasering, bending (16swg and 18swg), welding, polishing, shotblasting and painting. Not every planter requires everything doing to it, but it would be nice to source everything under one roof or at least have somebody who can outsource certains bits without a problem.

What’s in it for you?
You’d get our American enquiries to quote on and fabricate – if successful.
You’d also get quite a few Tinbasher mentions (in fact, we’d market your core services like one of our own), which could be rather handy for the right company.

What’s in it for me?
I’d still have a works’ Christmas do to attend.

Please ask any other questions you might have in the comments or via email: tinbasher@butlersheetmetal.com and I’ll get back in touch with you. Then you can shout me lunch.

I probably haven’t covered everything here but I’m rather keen to get this show on the road.

Anyway, the fella in question arrived the other Wednesday with the deformed planter strapped to the back of his van and, as he pulled up outside Butler Sheetmetal HQ, was greeted by at least three of us um-ing and ah-ing and scratching ourselves quizzically behind the ears.

As he started to undo the straps to get the planter off we all lent against his van and started to witter on to each other how easy it’d be to hammer the damage out. The bloke’s face lit up with gleeful relief as he asked “Really?” thinking that it’d save him from having to pay for a new one.

The poor bugger soon realised that we’d suckered him in a touch as John explained that it was goosed and a new one was the order of the day.

Bless.

There was something particularly old school about the place and its clientele. In fact it could all get a bit too Fred Dibnah from time to time.

But there was one customer who stood out from all the rest in so much that they were female, owned a company which specialised in bondage gear and used John Smiths to supply them with broom handles and olives for their cat o’ nine tails’.

You can imagine how the talk of flanges, pipe thickness and elephant paste took a slightly different twist after one of her orders had been placed.

Anyway, to provide an extremely tenuous link to the previous spiel and to prove that the world of sheet metal and stainless steel fabrication isn’t quite as prudish as you might’ve thought – check these out:

Maybe I’ve over stepped the mark assuming these are primarily for bondage purposes.

And I wonder if they do my size?

(From[via])

We received the enquiry just before Christmas and sent them a sample once they were happy with the quote.

Stay tuned for pics once they’re finished!

Here they are at either side of the foyer as you walk in.

Here’s one of them from the front.

Here’s one from an angle. (Although I’m sure you can see that for yourselves.)

And here’s one from the other side.

I hope these pictures give you some idea of the scale of the things as I don’t know the actual sizes.

Considering stainless steel photographs so appallingly as it tends to show up every single mark and fingerprint, I don’t think the chap who did these has done that bad a job.

You can view more bespoke stainless steel planters at Tinpot Alley.

We aren’t ones to drop names into converstions like your average drunk would drop an alka seltzer into a pint glass the morning after the night before. And besides, the vast majority of you won’t have heard of him.

In one of my prevoius incarnations as a furnishings emporium proprietor just over ten years ago, I remember both Stuart Ripley and Graeme Le Saux popping into my establishment one afternoon after training as we were located just round the corner from the Blackburn training ground.

It was round the time of Uncle Jack’s millions and either just before or after they’d won the Premiership.

Some of Jack’s millions well spent – finally.

Anyway, after Stuart Ripley had managed to cause an effect similar to a partial solar eclipse after turning to the right whilst browsing the shop window and I’d stopped mentally singing: ‘If Ripley plays for England, so can I’, we managed to build up a bit of a rapport with Mr. Le Saux and counted him as a bit of a regular. We also had to pop round his gaff once in a while to do certain bits of work.

At the time, Blackburn players were probably some of the best paid in the land and, whilst Mr. Le Saux had a lovely pad in Waddington, it didn’t have the equivalent of a plasma screen in every room, a pool table at the top of the stairs and a grand piano in the foyer.

It’s quite apparent that even second string footballers at second rate clubs are paid infinitely more than those of a not too distant yesteryear. But then again, you knew that anyway.

Oh, and when was the last time you saw a full safety net in place for a trampoline at working class kid’s house?

Well now I’ve managed to completely alienate the footballers’ wives portion of the market, it might be quite nice to see what shape swimming pool Rio Ferdinand has.

[Next week: How Freddie Flintoff shotgunned a planter-load of Lancaster Bomber]

You can view more stainless steel planters over at Tinpot Alley and the Tinpot blog.