Farm Day at Mt Crawford Forest

We had a fantastic day on Sunday 25th when we took our display of gates and stock equipment to the local Farm Day at the Mt Crawford forest in SA. Despite it being a fund raiser for the local primary school this well organised event heralded the arrival of at least 4000 people on what was a lovely sunny autumn day.

Despite spending most the time at the site, it was more a picnic for us than a show with fresh produce such as gourmet cheeses, german sausages, bread and port from the surrounding districts for sale - which we enjoyed for lunch and afternoon tea. The forest grounds provided a wonderful atmosphere with lots of displays, entertainment and visitors picnicing with campfires and BBQ's. We had lots of interest in our country style gates and horse products, especially the hay feeders.

Garden Gates

Well here's our first garden gate made from one of the beautiful gate toppers we now have access to. Although it's not powder coated yet it still looks fantastic and will look beautiful as the courtyard entrance.

The bars are made of solid steel, not tube so it's quite heavy and solid. The clients brief was that the bars are close enough to stop her small dogs from getting through and they'll certainly do that.

We also ordered some decorative snap ons, a gorgeous double sided rosette with a hammered finish, a larger wrought iron gate top (my favourite) and some other intricate scrolly bits. We can't wait to get a moment to put them together into something really impressive.

Website Update

I spent some time updating our website and adding a couple of new pages including a link to this blog over the weekend. There's a 'FAQ' page listing answers to many commonly asked questions including how to go about ordering our products, as well as a 'News' page which lists any upcoming shows that we're attending, such as the Farm Day at the Mt Crawford forest on Sunday 25 May, an annual event held by the Birdwood Primary School as a major fundraiser. We'll have many of our products on display including our gates, and hopefully some new designs as well ... which leads me to the next bit of news.

An exciting day as today we got some of the lovely wrought ironwork components which we are going to incorporate into our new gate designs starting with garden gates. We ordered in a couple of gate toppers which are stunning, as well as scrollwork and a decorative fleuron. Hopefully we'll have some prototypes done within the next couple of months. I'll post photos as they become available.

Opening Statements!

Garden Gates ...

As our business grows and we talk to more customers, we've noticed that there's not only a demand for our entrance and paddock gates, but also garden or personal access gates. In times past many a farmer showed his appreciation to his wife by making her a lovingly made garden gate to display in her own domain. When times were tough these gardens were sometimes the main solace and distraction for these ladies and their families, being the only green patch on the whole property. Although these gates were usually simple it was not uncommon for the husbands to decorate the gates with beautiful scrollwork, making them quite a feature in these more often than not, cottage gardens. Although we've been making smaller versions of our bigger gates, we're now in possession of a scroll bender which has opened up the scope of what we can offer our clients. Here's an example of the top of a gate which we designed for one customer ... need I say that the resident welder loves his new toy!

Opening Statements!

As a relatively new small family business I thought it might be a good idea to add a blog our existing website. We started 'Farmweld' about 18 months ago and originally decided that our objectives would be to make quality products primarily for small property owners. Their needs are different to bigger farmers and their frustrations, as well as our own, with poorly made equipment made it obvious that there would be a demand for well made stock equipment - especially for handling small herds of sheep, alpacas or cattle as well as gaps in the equine aka horse industry for horse equipment like jump wings, float yard panels and well made and safe roundyards.
Having a bit of an artistic streak I found that it would also be nice to make something different to the norm. Farm gates seemed to only come in mesh or less commonly bar type gates and in many cases the quality was poor. These days gates only come in standard sizes, but lets face it how many old properties have 'standard' size gate openings? In the old days, most 'cocky's' would do their own fencing and gateways were made to accommodate the landscape and needs of the property owner. Many would also make their own gates, expecially the lovely garden gates with timber, or odd bits of wrought iron work or scroll work. Many people going through a sea change or tree change and needing to upgrade gates and fencing have found that replacing an odd sized gate is alot harder than originally thought and in some cases a good excuse for some retailers to charge ridiculous amounts to custom make a gate.

I guess that's where we saw that there was a need, a demand as such. Farm gates needn't be boring and more attractive gates needn't be unfunctional. That's where our range stemed from ... the desire to make something functional, strong and yet attractive. A farm gate that would keep in livestock and also be welcoming ... the birth of Farmweld's Heritage Style Country Gates.