THE signs are everywhere. Honour boards and plaques are on sports clubrooms’ walls, in hospitals and on school walls. Chances are Seaford engraver Barry Rea had a hand in a sign’s upkeep.
The 47-year-old craftsman has been engraving, making and etching signs for nine years at his Superior Etchworx business.
“I’ve been doing handcrafts all my working life,” he said.
“I started with a leather goods manufacturing business and people always have something they want to challenge you with … I really love the challenges.”
Challenges range “from ridiculously small to ridiculously large”.
“I’ve etched the back of a watch which was an etching the size of a five cent piece,” Mr Rea said.
“For a company called Fast Times I’ve etched a panel that’s about 2 metres by about 2.5 metres.”
Mr Rea said he has a go at just about any project. He has etched whisky barrels, customises car and motorcycle parts and has built Edwardian-style cast iron clad postboxes at clients’ request.
“I collect hand skills like some people collect stamps.”
So-called “failed” projects linger long in Mr Rea’s memory.
“We had one thing where the Prime Minister [Tony Abbott] was supposed to open up the PARC [swimming] centre for the council and I’d made a beautiful glass plaque for that which had to be changed.”
Another time he built an 18-metre “inflatable hill” for rolling Zorb balls with people down it.
“It was sewn together but I misjudged the amount of stress of the material and the thing exploded, basically”.
Fortunately the ‘explosion’ occurred during testing.
His biggest challenge was “a Christmas setting for Santa Claus put up at Stud Park Shopping Centre [in Rowville] about 12 years ago. I made a model of a house that was virtually life-size.”
Mr Rea said it took more than 300 hours to complete and at one point – perhaps taking the spirit of Christmas too literally – he accidentally “nailed myself to it during the process”.
“I literally put blood, sweat and tears into that job.”
The successes over the years have vastly outnumbered the disappointments. Mr Rea is keen to try his hand at any project a client asks for.
“I like looking at something and thinking ‘Wow! How can I do that?’,” he said.
See Superior Etchworx website at etchworx.webs.com for examples of Mr Rea’s handiwork and call 9773 6250 to discuss commissioning a project.
