Redirect to the REAL blog

As may be obvious, this blog has been long neglected. I revamped our website in August 2014 and have a blog there, so please visit www.farmweld.com.au/blog for the latest news and updates. 

While you're there have a browse through the rest of the website too, you never know what you might find.

Wrought iron garden gates

There's no reason why functional items like gates should be boring. Use them as a focal point to your garden, to create a welcoming entrance, or to entice someone through into your special place.

It's been a while since I've blogged here as we started a Wordpress blog on our website at www.farmweld.com/blog and my little blogspot site got pushed to the backburner. That having been said I've been reluctant to close down this blog as it has it's own merits. Much has changed since the last post with the addition of a new blacksmith forge purchased from Adelaide. The blacksmithing equipment opens up the range of wrought iron we can now make in our Adelaide Hills workshop. Andrew has been very excited and passionate about his work and the additional equipment has spurred him on even more.

Iron works so well in the garden, it blends and complements stone and timber beautifully. Here are a couple smaller wrought iron gates that were made for customers:

The above wrought iron gate was for a chicken coop, and really dressed up what would otherwise have been a uninteresting corner of the garden.  The gate is now the main feature and focal point from the house.

The gate below was commissioned by a customer in Queensland and was entirely hand forged to match a piece of ironwork that was brought back from a trip to New Orleans.

Use your imagination, don't just see a gate as being something functional, but rather ask yourself how you can use it to create a focal point or an invitation into your special place.

Farmweld Website Updated

After many months of enquiries about the garden arches, steel wall trellises and other wrought iron work we've had for sale, and been advertising in the Australian Country Style and Gardening Australia magazines I finally managed to spend a bit of time putting together another page on our website where I could showcase a few photos of our garden products.  Most of these have already appeared here in this blog however it was high time that the website also featured these lovely pieces.

Our new page is still a work in progress with a wrought iron tree guard and a hose stopper (an ornamental wrought iron stake to stop the hose from running over or through the garden or vegie patch when you pull it around) are yet to be added. I've got a number of other ideas as well for future projects but as we're beginning to head into our busy spring/pre Christmas season I doubt the workshop will have much time to spare. 

Visit our new page through the Products page or go direct by clicking here.  Remember to revisit the Gates page as well, it's been revamped with many new photos of our heritage gates and wrought iron garden gates, as has the 'News' page which now showcases a collection of some of our custom pieces including wrought iron courtyard gates, heritage woven wire gates that would suit any Victorian garden and more wrought iron pieces.

I'd love to hear your comments and feedback.

Wrought Iron Garden Gazebo - for the wedding ...

Well the dust has settled.  Our daughter's wedding is over and I must admit it took a couple of weeks where we didn't really know what to do with ourselves. Months had been spent organising things, but the highlight was being able to design something unique for the day ... the wedding gazebo for the garden ceremony. 

It's been made up from separate panels and is very heavy with all the solid steel in it. We ran out of time and didn't get it powder coated, however we all decided that the olde world rusty finish worked well. 

Once it rusted up we sealed it with Penetrol. This is an oil product that dries like a varnish. It penetrates right into the steel so that it won't rust any further. It's given the gazebo a lovely natural brown finish and I'd strongly recommend this product to any of our customers who want a 'rusty' gate, garden arch or ornament.

We initially toyed with the idea of hiring the gazebo out for weddings but now that the wedding's over maybe I'll find a more permanent place for it ... just for me!

Garden Arches and Rose Arbours - China vs Australia

In the previous post I mentioned 'The Wedding', the one major event which was taking up every waking hour, not only with typical wedding preparations but also the mad haste to "fix and clean up" the property for the pending celebrations. Now, Murphy's Law or should I say curse, has a way of embracing this property at the most inopportune times.  One such event was when the rose arch that my prized Pierre de Ronsard was trained against had finally given up the ghost.  Our 'cheap and cheerful' China-made arch which I brought up here 7 years ago from the city, being typically made from cheap thin walled tubing, finally rusted through ... completely.  I was devastated to find my beloved Pierre on the ground. 

Despite making and selling garden arches I've been without one myself for quite some time, so here was the prime opportunity to get a sturdy, strong and more appropriate garden arch made up. The climbing rose was positioned right where the tea and coffee was to be served after 'The Ceremony', so no excuses, making a rose arbor was one job that was not going to be filed into the invisible list of 'to do's' which Andrew kept in his head. This was a project that needed to be done and finished. Unfortunately we didn't have time to powder coat it, but it did get a lick of black paint with some gold rubbed over the flower motifs. 

It's a prime example of wrought iron made to fit.  One side of the garden arch fits the purpose of supporting my Pierre de Ronsard and the other side, with its decorative wrought iron work is ornamental with beautiful scrolls and hot stamped steel flowers. Being narrower in depth it doesn't block the path either.  This is one arch which is not going to rust away and should last a couple of decades at least.

Wrought iron pool fence

It's amazing how much gets done when the pressure's on!  The night before Andrew went in for a hip replacement our daughter announced that she wanted to get married, the bombshell dropped when we found out she was giving us only 9 months notice - they wanted an autumn wedding.  Miss Independent was only 19, so our reaction after the initial shock, was "how the heck are we paying for this?", followed by "Oh, you want it here at home ... looks like we're going to have to do a major tidy up". Now, we live on 75 acres, work from the property and have been here 6 years. The property was run down to start with and there was still alot to fix up.  But most importantly the swimming pool didn't have a child proof pool fence - or more practically from our personal perspective a barrier to stop the wildlife and curious calves testing the solar pool blanket - but that's another story. 

I've never particularly liked standard tube pool fencing, and I figured that it was my turn to have Andrew make me something really lovely from wrought iron.  I'm glad my man likes a challenge, he on the other hand was far more practical ... "you want it, you give me a drawing and I'll make it".  The challenge was on!  After a couple of knockbacks from the 'welder extraordinaire', along the line of "that won't work", or "have you any idea how much that's going to cost?", a compromise was reached. [Sidenote: it's not only our customers that have to work with mercenary husbands]. 

 The pool fence is made, each panel from solid steel and wrought iron so it's quite heavy, and it came up beautifully.  It would have been nice to have had more wrought iron in the design, but unfortunately South Australian swimming pool regulations are such that there must be a minimum 1.2m clearance from top to bottom between where a child can get a foot hold.  I think the gold caps, which incidentally started out as a joke really set it off.

On a final note, I really enjoy watching Andrew beam with pride when people admire his wrought iron pool fence.

Cast Iron McKay Sunshine Gates and Simpson Gates ... the modern alternative

The old Sunshine heritage gates of the turn of the century are fetching very high prices at clearing sales and auctions. It's amazing to see some appear on Ebay in really bad shape, only to go for ridiculous prices. Could this be due to the fact that they're becoming harder to find? I recall seeing a pair of 2.4m (8' in the old imperial measurement) gates going for in excess of $2500, some being irreparable and others needing some serious restoration work. These prices were for gates that were pick up only, which would have restricted the interest and lowered prices.

Many of the original old gates typically require a significant amount of restoration to fix badly bent and rusted out bars. I'm not sure what makes these gates so appealing, they were extremely heavy old things, made from solid steel bars and joined with cast iron joints. I suppose the castings on some of the fancier ones were quite pretty but the ones with a steel frame and twisted wire (instead of bars) may not have been the safest of gates around stock.

Left: Farmweld's New Cast Jointed Gate

We've had many enquiries about cast jointed gates over the years and have finally succumbed to the pressure!  A Victorian insurance company approached us recently to make up a set for a customer of theirs and we agreed to take on the job. The castings cost an absolute fortune, so they're not a cheap gate to replicate, however what we came up with looks just like the original.

The gate differs in that we've used modern techniques. The cast joints are from iron, and the bars are steel pipe, so not quite as heavy as the originals. Don't get me wrong, the gates are still very heavy. The only down side is that the castings, like the originals are cast and limited to specific sized gates.  We'll be adding these to our range of gates, and will soon advise as to what sizes will be available.