Thorpe Steel Arc, forging a better tomorrow

BY WAZARI JOHNSON

Metal is a material that is filled with possibilities, although some people can only see its hardness; its rigidity. Metal is used to make bridges, buildings, furniture, tools, equipment etc.

The world over metal has been used to build up societies and it is used to keep societies going. The United States of America, the world’s current super power has greatly depended on metal to frame and support that great nation. According to the American Welding Society, an estimated 50% of the United States gross national product is affected by welding. Think about it; metal can be seen anywhere and everywhere throughout that nation, anything made of metal, no matter if it is large or small, can be welded. With the above being said, we can safely conclude that welding (the industry that involves working with metal) is a much needed industry in all developing nations and it is a skill integral to the development of nations.

Orette Thorpe has dedicated the larger portion of his life to working with metal. He is not just a welder, and a man using an electric arc to fuse metal, the man is a designer in his own right, a true artisan that takes a whole lot of ingenuity and innovation to his discipline.

He has worked on a wide cross section of projects in his career from: large commercial buildings, residential and commercial fencing, gates, security grills, metal furniture and metal home accessories. He shared with me that one of his favorite projects was modifying a box body truck into a food truck with a really sleek commercial kitchen built on the inside of it.

Mr. Thorpe has worked for different entities through the years but recently decided to launch out on his own, starting his own business. He shares that God has been very gracious to him because he has had a regular flow of customers since opening the doors to his metal workshop.

While definitely the goodness of God takes pre-eminence, Mr. Thorpe has played his part in the process by doing good work, and in Jamaica (as I suspect is the same the world over) the result of good work is more work heading your way. He outlined to me that he does not consider any job too big or too small, and he strives to give the same professional courtesies to all his clients irrespective of the monetary value of his jobs.

In the short time he has been running his own entity, his fame has even gone beyond the shores of Jamaica as his work was seen on Instagram by someone living in the Cayman Islands. His work must have moved them, because they ordered one of his gorgeous metal garden chairs. I have personally seen images of how one of those chairs enhances and transforms a garden, so I can fully understand why that lady requested that one be made for her.

When I heard about the process in making a chair, I was even more impressed. The customer remotely liaised with him periodically over the build, and the chair was fabricated in such a way that she was very pleased with the results.

I too decided to test the waters of Thorpe Steel Arc, and submitted my own designs for a furniture solution. I am writing this article from a desk built by Thorpe Steel Arc, and it is a purchase that I do not regret in the least.

Mr. Thorpe works along with Mr. Coley, who is also a genius when it comes to working with metal, I’ve seen Mr. Coley construct some of the most elegant metal scrolls and curve I’ve ever seen a man make without the aid of machines. They enjoy all the areas that they work in with metal but they have shared that for this year going forward, they would like to delve more into the realm of metal furniture solutions.