Dovetail Spotlight: Oscar Sanchez Mendoza - A Conversation with a Master Metalworker
Oscar Sanchez Mendoza, Metal Shop Foreman
On October 1st, 2020, Jackie Hensy and Jill Hardy visited the Dovetail Metal Shop and were given a tour by Oscar Sanchez Mendoza, who spoke about his own path to metal working and his aspirations for the metal shop’s future. The Dovetail metal shop was first established in 2016 and is run by Oscar, the metal shop foreman, with the support of metal fabricators Albie Ish and Billy Musselman, as well as shop manager Axel Homar. The shop creates custom architectural metalwork and furniture for residential and commercial spaces. The scope of work ranges from large-scale projects requiring inventive solutions, such as pivot window walls, to small details like a door pull with a custom finish. This team of artisans draws inspiration from their experiences collectively spanning furniture design and fine art to bicycle and motorcycle fabrication.
Dovetail Metal Shop from left: Albie Ish, Billy Musselman, Oscar Sanchez Mendoza, and Quenten the dog.
JH: You received your Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from University of Washington and soon after began teaching art classes to children at Pratt in Seattle. What role does art play in your life?
OSM: If you go to school and study art, that stays with you. I incorporate my art background into building motorcycles and practicing design. My interest in art also stems from my time spent working for David Gulassa. He was very influential to me and I was there for 15 years! He also prompted my interest in collecting little objects. Other people that worked there have developed this habit of collecting objects that are inspirational, too.
Building motorcycles and cars was influenced by him because he was into Land Rovers and had a Ferrari at one time. When I started working there, I thought “Well, I want to build something too,” and so I started building.
JH: You mentioned David Gulassa, the late Seattle artist and designer who welcomed you into his studio without prior training in metalworking. You worked there alongside Axel Homar, Dovetail’s shop manager, for over a decade producing furniture and art. How did this opportunity and the mentorship provided define your approach to guiding a team?
OSM: This is my first opportunity to run a shop and I’m really enjoying it. Dovetail gives us a lot of leeway and freedom. When Scott and Chad hired us, we all walked through the shop and they said, “Make it a cool space. Make it a space that brings people together. Make it inspiring for you.” The shop that David created was inspiring like that. My intent is to emulate that kind of environment here.
When hiring, work ethic and attitude are most important. If you have those two things, you can do anything. But if you have a poor attitude or you don’t work hard, you’re going to be difficult to work with. Then, you look for other qualities in people. You ask them about their interests. Personal interests can help in your work. Billy did a lot of MIG welding previously and he’s really good at it. He was in a more production-type role, so he was welding parts together all day every day. If you give him a bunch of parts, he can go into production mode and knock them out really fast. He’s also into BMX bicycling. Albie used to build bicycles and that really helps us here because he can do different things, like machining. He’s also into photography. I want someone who has those kinds of interests. Someone can be the best welder in the world, but what you get is just a guy that welds and not someone with creativity or creative problem solving capabilities.
JH: How is creativity important here in the shop?
OSM: Creativity is very important because a lot of times things aren’t resolved in the drawings we receive. Someone hands us a drawing set thinking that all we have to do is assemble, but a lot of times you have to use your experience, your creativity to find what’s not cut and dry or what they didn’t think of.
Like these drawings… These are gates that Billy just made. What the drawings don’t show are a keypad, a latch, an automatic door catch, some hardware, a thumbturn. All these components go into the gate and whoever drew this didn’t have that information and they don’t tell you how to put it together. That’s up to us, so we have to figure out how to make it work. Going back to what I said about the person that only welds... They’d just sit there and ask where the drawings are for the latch and the keypad, they’d shut down.
JH: What excites you about working with metal?
OSM: Taking something raw, a material like flat bar, angle, or a sheet, and creating something out of it. It’s nice to see the material arrive and the process that it goes through to reach the final product, whether that's a pivot door or a railing. The process involves some problem solving and a lot of hard work. It’s labor intensive with a lot of heavy lifting. The hardest part is when you think you’re done, and you have to go back and fix something. You can’t beat yourself up if something doesn’t work. As quickly as you can you must find a solution to fix it.
JH: When transitioning mediums from paint to metal, how has the sensitivity that you developed while painting informed how you approach finishing, patinas, and creating a material with richness?
OSM: My painting and art background really lends itself to the patina work and finishing. You develop a good eye and attention to detail. Not to say that every person that finishes should have an art background, but it helps. Learning about color theory, learning about different components of painting and drawing help you see things. It makes coming up with different patinas a lot easier.
This red sample is basically steel with different levels of spray paint, and it’s been knocked down and then the steel has been blackened. I’d like to do more like that. There’s a white sample that’s similar. The gold sample is brass. The brownish sample is steel that’s been rusted, blackened, then knocked down. You layer the rust with heat. I think the art background definitely helps with finishes and looking with a critical eye.
JH: How would you describe the atmosphere of the Dovetail shop and what makes it special?
OSM: I think what makes it special is that there’s only three of us. Being small is very unique. We all hold each other accountable for the shop, the tools, the machines, the work that we’re doing. There’s less “Why didn’t this get done?” Or “Who broke this?” Instead, there’s a lot of personal responsibility and I really enjoy that about this shop. At the same time, we put out a lot of work for three people. It’s pretty amazing actually. We all work well together and we make a really good team.
As far as the shop, it’s representative of who you are and the kind of work you do. Our shop is still evolving. We painted those cabinets all different colors to bring some life into the space. We put up samples and some shapes on the walls. We found an old strap across the street and made a light fixture out of it. We like to do things that make the shop look better and work better.
JH: Can you talk about the shop capabilities? What projects are you excited about working on?
OSM: When the shop first started, Axel would ask “Do you think you can build this?” I’d say, “We’re gonna try!” Axel isn’t skeptical, he’s pragmatic and practical. He hasn’t asked that in a long time, though. The project that we got most excited about recently was a large pivot wall. It involved some machining and rigging. We started with square tube and pretty soon you’ve got this wall made. There’s a lot of hardware components to make the wall move, so Albie did a lot of machining. Moving through different processes keeps the people that are making it engaged.
OSM: There are some machines that we would like to acquire that would help us make even more in-house. A hydraulic slip roller would allow us to roll shapes from a flat bar or sheet, or to fix materials that aren’t straight when you receive them. David Gullasa had automotive shaping tools that he used for building furniture which is pretty cool. That’s rubbed off on me. If you have a tool, you’re going to use it. The sky's the limit once you have certain tools. You start thinking differently, you have new ideas, like the automotive tools for shaping furniture. Every weekend David was at Boeing Surplus looking for machines. He was interesting, a rare person.
JH: I was reading about David Gulassa’s life the other day and came across his response to the question of what background and training he looked for in hiring, since he had such a talented team. He said, "I never asked them about schooling or experience. Nor for references. I only wanted to discover if they had retained their passion for living. With passion a person can learn and do anything!"
OSM: Oh wow. My interview went: “Hi, how are you?” “Good, why do you want to work here?” I said, “I’m creative, I like to do things with my hands. I like to build things.” He asked, “Are you strong?” I said, ”Yeah, I’m pretty strong.” “ Okay be here at 8 o'clock on Monday.” That was it.
JH: Dovetail is an umbrella for many talented artisans and fabricators. Every day, they perform work that is enriched by the crafts of their free time. Can you show us some of your other work that we might not show up on the Dovetail website?
OSM: I’m working on my MG, a little yellow British car, it’s right out there. I’d like to get back into building light fixtures and coffee tables. There’s all kinds of stuff to do, I just don’t have enough time.
The Ducati is over here… I cobbled it together with parts off Ebay. I assembled the motor, took it apart, put it back together. I rebuilt the frame, cut it and clamped it since I have short legs. They’re just subtle changes. I bought the tank. It was red with facets, but I didn’t like the facets so I cut it in half and took an inch off the back so that it tapers to a point. I hammered it smooth, welded it back together, put a skim coat of filler on, primered it, and painted it. I was going for proportions. I painted the wheels, the light bucket. I did a bunch of wiring, the wiring harness is all new. The exhaust had a different routing and shape to it. This is where your welding comes in. I hacked up the exhaust. I first used wire to shape the direction of the pipe and then welded it all together. You fit it, pull it out, change it, start at the top and work your way down. It’s been a really long process. I used aluminum in places because there’s already some aluminum features. I resealed the tubes and when I had it all apart, I took marks off with the lathe, just to be different. You have slight repetitions in color. Some yellow here. There’s red there, then you have more aluminum. Then some black. The green fuel line unfortunately has to go… You don’t want to overdo it. Keep it subtle.
