Meet more makers in the November/December 2026 feature.
Shane Strickland may love fabricating, but he hated his high school shop class. “Immediately, I was like, ‘Well, this is not for me,’” the Castle High School graduate laughs. “I was a creative kid. I was always drawing, and I wanted to build stuff. I just didn’t know how.”
A summer job at Parker’s Custom Iron Works in Boonville, Indiana, revealed the artistry behind metal fabrication. “Once I started to weld and build things, that’s when it clicked: ‘I can scratch that creative itch and make a paycheck,’” he says.
That “summer job” lasted seven years, and Strickland spent a total of 18 years working for fabrication businesses before the COVID-19 pandemic put a damper on his music career hopes. “That’s when I made the full switch,” he says. “I wanted to get into a position where I was doing more design, selling the projects, more customer one-on-one type of stuff.”
As owner of Brass Bones Fabrication, Strickland works mostly with mild steel, stainless steel, and brass, mixing in materials like glass, leather, and wood to create one-of-a-kind commercial and residential projects. At Spankey’s Una Cafe, diners dig into pizza surrounded by metal wall coverings and sidle up to a hostess stand and bar tops he fabricated.
“That seems to be his specialty: turning the mundane into something the owner can cherish,” says attorney Neil Woods, whose Evansville home features metal handrails fabricated by Strickland. When Woods was restoring a historic church to house his law firm, “I handed him a pile of pipes from the old organ and a photo from the internet. Months later, Shane showed up with our Sputnik light. It was perfect,” Woods says.
“I enjoy the craftsmanship of it,” Strickland says, so he leans more toward man-operated equipment than automated tools. “That’s kind of a line I’m having to tiptoe,” he says. “I want to remain competitive. But I also like doing things old school, and artisan-made is what stands out to me.”
Encore!
Shane Strickland still is close to his bandmates in Gentlemen and Scholars. Guitarist Pat Brady designed the Brass Bones business logo, and bassist Strickland created a cage-like art piece for vocalist Jeremiah Galey’s West Side restaurant, Bad Randy’s Hot Chicken & BBQ Lounge.
