Gas Valve Cover Wall Art

Sold following a neighborhood art show. Dimensions: 11 inches square, 1.75 inches thick; Weight 5 pounds. Some people (including me), like rustic/rusty old artifacts; we see them as potential pieces of quirky, industrial art. The central feature of this piece is something remarkably common, the kind of thing you may have walked over countless times without really noticing. It’s the cover from an old gas valve box that would have been flush with the ground. It’s made by Bingham & Taylor, a company based in Culpepper, Virginia, that’s been making various metal (and now plastic) fixtures for gas and water utilities for 165 years. I see their name (or just “B&T”) all the time when looking down as I walk around D.C., and I assume their products are installed in streets and sidewalks all over the region. The yellow/rust tones of the central feature stand out nicely against the dark background. The frame is made from something else you may see all the time, a wooden stake used to stabilize newly planted trees. The rough texture and raw, natural tones of the frame set off the piece nicely. $75.

The Story

Walking my dog Ozzie one day in my Glover Park neighborhood of D.C., I came across this old cast iron piece near the street. It had apparently been displaced/replaced during some utility repair work. I certainly didn’t remove it from its original home or leave an uncovered hole in the sidewalk or street. As is often the case with stuff I find, the design idea of the final piece came to me pretty quickly. The first thing I did was to clean it up with a stiff wire brush and Comet, to remove the loose outer layers of rus and dirt. Then I found the nicest (straightest and squarest) former tree stake in my collection. I also liked the rough saw marks and made sure to use that side as the front of the frame. I used four passes with my router to cut away one long edge, which would allow the backing piece to sit forward from the back edge of the frame, to accommodate the mounting bolts sticking through. Then I used my miter saw to cut four equal-length segments with 45-degree (mitered) corners. I used a jigsaw to cut the square backing board from a piece of leftover 1/8-inch-thick underlayment (originally from The Home Depot), which I commonly use for wall art pieces like this. I spray painted the backing piece satin black after drilling the mounting holes. I assembled the frame with glue and a dowel across each corner, and then attached the backing piece to the recessed frame ledge with glue and screws. I attached the gas valve cover to/through the backing piece with a couple of 5/16 bolts and nuts, which I got from Glover Park (Ace) Hardware for less than $2 and also spray painted black because their original shiny silver would have been a major distraction.

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