Alexander Weygers

Alexander Weygers was a Dutch-American polymath who lived from 1901 to 1989 and worked as a sculptor, painter, print maker, blacksmith, author and mechanical and aerospace engineer. Born in Mojokerto in the Dutch East Indies, he studied mechanical engineering at the Groningen Polytechnic and shipbuilding in Dordrecht, then emigrated to the United States in 1926 and worked as a mechanical draughtsman in Seattle. After the death of his first wife he turned from engineering to art, but his engineering imagination continued: in 1944 he received a United States patent for the Discopter, a vertical take-off disc-shaped aircraft whose design later served as a prototype for similar hovering craft. He taught at Berkeley and retired to a studio and retreat in Carmel Valley, California. His books on blacksmithing and tool making, gathered as The Complete Modern Blacksmith, advocate reuse and repair of tools and materials.