About Me
Just wanted to give you all a little backstory on me and my brand, and where this all began.
I started off as a fabrication welder and a metal artist (hence the name Bergk's Metal Works) working in the aerospace and then the trade-show welding industries. I made large scale fixtures, intricate displays, and innovative artistic metal sculptures as part of my day job. I'd originally always had the idea of starting up my own welding business and always knew that I wanted to work for myself and build a business from the ground up, but the path to get there didn't quite go as expected.
Around 2016 I learned how to run a lathe as part of the fabrication industry turning bushings and inserts for a trade-show company in Cypress, California. This was a cool new skill to me but didn't really interest me more than to help in my work load at the time. Come April of 2018 at my next job, I had an accident one day and broke my wrist and ended up out of work for nearly 10 months due to a misdiagnosed break and following surgery and two separate casts. I had been welding and creating since I was 14 years old and during this time couldn't simply sit still.
During this time I'd come across a variety of different makers on Instagram including a few guys making rings. I'd only ever seen rings at a jewelry store and had no idea a guy in a garage could actually make them themselves. I figured if they were doing it, why couldn't I? After all, I'd had plenty of experience fabricating, machining, and creating whatever was asked of me. So i took a leap and ordered a mini machinist lathe and proceeded to work with one arm in a cast and the other turning a lathe to create (not the best at the time) hand-made rings. Eventually I was healed and went back to work, but continued to make rings as inspiration hit and eventually discovered some incredible materials that I'd simply never heard of before and fell in love with the process of turning them into something you could wear and display as a piece of art on your finger. This was just a side hobby for quite a few years, earning a nice side income to my day job, but honestly just paying for more and more of these exotic materials.
Then came the biggest life change for us all, the year 2020. March 12th I was sent home from work and told I'd be back in about two weeks once the "lockdown" was over. It just so happened that March 13th was the day my upgraded and much more "professional" bench top metal lathe would arrive. This upgrade allowed me to truly delve into the exotic metals such as Titanium Damascus, Mokume Gane, and Superconductor and opened up a whole new range of rings that were possible. And as it would turn out, nearly a full year spent at home in my garage shop to explore and create any design I could think of, with the added benefit of a stable "government assisted" income on top of my new found hobby's profit. Eventually I'd take on a new job and get back to welding and keep the rings as a side hobby for another year or so.
But I just couldn't put it aside. I'd work a 12 hour shift just to come home and keep working on rings as there was always a new idea, new material, new finish I could experiment with. The urge to create just felt right, more so than the welding work and welding art I'd done for so long. So around September of 2021 I took the leap and quit my day job to pursue making one of a kind rings as my full time gig. I'd had a pretty solid list of customers that seemed just as excited about the rings I was making as I was, and even though it can be twice as much work being self-employed and running every aspect of a business myself, I just wouldn't go back.
And now here we are in 2024 and I have now re-located my shop out to Tennessee with a much larger shop space, all of my machinery and tooling, and the same ambition to continue to improve and explore what can be done with materials of every kind and turn them into hand crafted rings, made just for you.
Thank you all for your support and appreciation in what I do, and I hope you continue to follow me along this journey to see what's in store!
- Trevor Bergk, owner and maker of Bergk's Metal Works