The guy in the welder’s helmet is Roy. Roy works for Steve Brownell who owns Brownell Metal Studio here in Virginia. When my van failed to pass the state inspection recently because the handle on the inside of the door didn’t work, I had to have it fixed. The bar where the handle was supposed to go was stripped down so I couldn’t just buy a $6 replacement at the car parts place. The only thing left to do was replace the door guts (not really an option since it’s hard to find guts for a 1975 Chevy) or weld a new handle on. So I went with the weld.

I called Steve who said no job was too small. If you look at his website you’ll see that something like a door handle on a 35-year old van really IS small. He does awesome work….He has lots of customers paying BIG bucks for that artistry and quality. But he treated me and my door handle like I was one of those customers!

He looked at it, gave me an estimate and when I showed up the following week there were two guys there to handle it. They answered all my questions, did a fantastic job and went the extra mile to design a handle that I could add another piece to, to make it work even better. What did I pay for design, handle, welding and tips on making the van run better? $40. What a deal! Where else can you hire metal artists who give great customer service and who care about the really little jobs like they do the really big jobs? I mean seriously folks. Go see these guys. http://brownellmetalstudio.com. They ROCK!

Steve is from New York/New Jersey - runs a massive Architectural Metalwork place and still took time to treat me like I mattered. That’s huge. Here are more photos of the morning….Roy cutting the bar he used for the handle, drilling the hole, grinding it down and welding it onto the door. And finally, the finished door. Please remember this is AN OLD VAN…and not a looker, but dependable as they come!!

Notice the old door handle to the left