I want to welcome you to Hells Canyon Designs. We have a interesting family and a really cool story. My dad to the right has been a high school teacher, stained-glass artist, is a published author and into his 80th year is writing and building scale wooden wagons. He got me started in glass work at an early age.
I'm the one in the middle and over my lifetime have worked as glass artist, mechanic, cabinet maker, and currently work as a full time helicopter pilot fighting wildfires throughout the US.
My son on the left is a a Sophomore attending the U of U in Salt Lake City. He has plenty of experience in the family trade, keeping orders filled while I'm on the road.
Kirby rounds out the team lurking in the background. Sounding board and product stress testing is his specialty.
We started as a Art Glass company. 25 years ago I was sandblasting pictures and art on glass with detail not matched at that time. This is a piece that was donated to the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation in 2018. The glass is 1/2 inch thick Starfire Glass, the wood is Bubinga and Wenge. The base hides a full RF controlled LED system with color changing and on off control.
In 2017 I traveled to a trade show in Portland Oregon and I saw my first laser system. I was intrigued by the possibilities and started doing some research. The laser companies message was buy a laser and you would basically just start printing money with them.
Well it's not quite like that. They are a fascinating machine and after purchasing a used machine I started learning. What you see here on our website is the result of many many hours of work.
Having pushed the envelope with detailed glass etching in the past I headed down the same path with the laser and found it very challenging but I started getting some cool results, some of which you see on these pages..
I am really proud of the Yeti cups I engrave and also finding out how far I can push engraving on leather.
I had a little art glass business in Maui for 6-7 years. It started with a couple of tools, some glass and a piece of plywood for a work bench on a garbage can outside our little place in Maui. I have heard if you're not embarrassed by the first piece you put out you waited too long. Our first prototype is the one on top, the final version is on the bottom. Maui was a pretty good place to sell Humpback Whale sun catchers and I made a lot of them.