Auto shop owner creates metal art

At first, Scott Nemiro’s auto shop seems like any other. A faint scent of motor oil fills the air. Rock ’n’ roll music is drowned out by the sounds of power drills. Cars sit high on lifts. 

But the stark difference begins to reveal itself in the form of a large, metal cutout of the United States that hangs on a wall of the waiting area. The piece has stars and stripes cut into it with blue and red transparent film underneath; giving the piece a patriotic touch. That art piece — along with many others — was created in Nemiro’s auto shop.

The shop is not only a place for fixing cars. It’s also where he creates custom-made metal art pieces for Advanced Metal Art.

“A lot of our stuff is man-cave stuff,” Nemiro said. “Right now, what’s real big is our monograms. Each one of those is customizable for a name and color and size. … They’re more elegant-looking where somebody can hang it on their front door or in their living room.”

Nemiro, 39, grew up near the West Oaks Mall and graduated from West Orange High School. He currently resides in the Winter Garden area. Nemiro has a long history of working with cars and in auto shops. He managed a local dealership for nine years before opening up his own shop, Advanced Automotive Works, in Orlando. He also owns Advanced Automotive Ocoee.

Although Nemiro said he has a talent for building and creating, the work behind Advanced Metal Art only started in recent years.

“I don’t know if I’d call myself an artist, but I guess it is (art) because we are creating it,” Nemiro said. “In the last three years, the artistic side of me has come out. It’s more of a recent hobby.”

The art pieces are made out of marine-grade aluminum. They are created using a computer-aided drafting program, a computer numerical control plasma-cutting table and a laser-cutting table. Once the pieces are cut, each one is grounded and painted by hand. 

“We draw vector graphics and curves and create the art or the shape, and then that translates to a computer program, which sends the information to the CNC machine,” Nemiro said. “The machine cuts it out, and then we hand-process it (and) grind it. … That’s more of the artistic portion: grinding and painting and things like that. The cutting is actually the easiest part of the whole deal.”

In addition to home décor, Nemiro also creates custom logos, flags and signs. Although some of his pieces are painted, the focus of his work is the metal. 

“We always try to use some kind of a translucent paint or something (like that) where you can see the metal,” Nemiro said. “I’ve actually had to turn down customers (because) they wanted it (as) an exact match of their colors and their logo in solid colors. And I told them, ‘Why don’t you just make it out of wood or acrylic or something that’s going to be a lot cheaper? What’s the point of using the metal if you’re not going to see the metal?’”