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.

 

Contemporary Farm Gate

Farmers and property owners are no longer happy to limit themselves to plain old mesh farm gates and are joining their city counterparts in looking for new and innovative designs to grace the entrances of their homes.

We had one such customer contact us for a brochure and in doing the usual follow up I happened to get hold of his wife instead. She had very specific ideas about what she wanted, but no one around made anything like it. The gates in our brochure were not what she had in mind. Not to leave it there, I informed her that we custom make gates to customers designs so if she could give me a photo, drawing or even a 'doodle' (as had another customer of ours a while back), we could put together some concept sketches and a quote.  She was rapt.  A picture was faxed through and after some modifications to make it fit, their dairy is soon to take delivery of this gate:

There are five solid cast steel balls set into the intersections which really set the design off. The gate is going to NSW and ironically the Pura Milk company which is local to South Australia uses this colour in all its branding.

Custom wrought iron design, coffee table legs

A while ago I posted a photo of a custom  designed wrought iron door panel which we made for a lovely customer who was building a house at Nairne, SA. This customer was so happy with what we created for her, she asked if we could possibly design something to support a table top that she and her husband had, and wanted to make into a coffee table. Here's what we came up with:

The design brief was that it should not only structurally support a very thick and heavy slab of timber which I believe is about 6cm thick, but that it should also complement the piece of timber. I think the design of the legs will work quite well with the heavy look of the table top. Another one I can't wait to see finished.

I have suggested that a matching chandelier might be worth looking at ... nothing like value adding.

Edwardian and Art Deco Gates - the gap in heritage style gates

So many homes that are being renovated in metropolitan areas in Australia are from the Edwardian and Art Deco periods. Many of these homes have been lost to developers who saw the simplicity of the design from this period as being 'boring' and not worth renovating.  Consequently the gates and fences available on the market tend to cater for the Victorian architectural periods as they were more decorative.  In an effort to fill this gap we 'finally' got around to making a prototype of a garden gate which would fit this period. It's simple lines, curved top and symetrical scrollwork all work with the Art Deco and Edwardian styles. We've used a bit of artistic licence with the addition of the wrought iron baskets, but I think it works. We're also going to make a larger entrance gate version but I couldnt wait to post a photo of this unpainted gate:

 

It lends itself to being made into a taller gate as well, so many possibilities! It also reminds me of some of the Edna Walling gates I've seen in books and in her early blueprints. I'm tempted to call it the 'Agatha' as I was inspired whilst watching a murder mystery on the ABC one night.

I'd love to hear your comments.

NEW - heritage style country gate design ... the Estate Gate & Chicken Coop Gate

We're pleased to announce the latest design in our gate range, the 'Estate' gate. We've had a number of customers with wider entrance ways who have liked the simplicity of the Railway gate, but also loved the older flat bar heritage style of the Eleanor - which unfortunately is not as stable in longer lengths. The double gates below have been sandblasted so that they will rust up evenly, as the customer wanted a set of old looking gates.

We've created a country gate with a stronger RHS frame, flat horizontal bars and a softly curved handle at either end. The diagonal supports are decorated with a ring in the centre. In future Eleanor gates over 12' or 3.6m will also be made with an RHS frame to give the gate more support and rigidity. Pricing of the new Estate gate will be the same as the Eleanor.

A few days ago I mentioned a chicken coop gate that we were making. Our customer wanted something a little 'different' and whimsical in design. Here's a photo of the gate ready to go to it's new home:

These are going to be very lucky chickens!

Wrought iron door panel and new gate topper ...

Our latest custom design ... a custom made wrought iron door panel was required by a client who is nearing completion of her new home. This design would also lend itself quite nicely to a decorative wall panel. We can't wait to see the photos of the completed door in situ.

One of our distributors sent us a samples of a couple of new wrought iron gate toppers. I got to doing some photography today so here's a section of one of them, as well as a section of another ornate wrought iron panel that we've used in some of our courtyard gates.  Both toppers that were sent to us are lovely and my initial reaction to the more ornate gate topper was that it would look lovely over a bed head.  More detailed info about these two items are in our wrought iron flyer. Please contact us via our website if you'd like more information.

Garden Arches & Rose Arbours ... whimsical wrought iron gates

We've been intending to come up with an easily transportable design for nearly a year but spare workshop time had been limited as demand for our gates grew. We recently had a customer order a garden arch so it gave us the opportunity to create what will be a standard design in our range. This rose arbour comes apart ito two halves but like all our products, is still very sturdy when bolted together.  

We're finding that over the last few months the workshop has been putting through more bespoke or custom designed pieces. I'll showcase these as we make them. But two pieces we made a few months ago for the Newman's Nursery at Tea Tree Gully in Adelaide have really taken some people's breath away. Situated by their Topiary Cafe the short wrought iron ballustrade, and large and small sets of wrought iron gates have got customers asking who made them! We're currently making up a small single version for a chicken run - lucky chooks!

There's another two new gates designs coming soon.

2009 Gate designs update

It's been while since we've posted anything to this blog, however this isn't really a reason for concern as the reason has been that we've been run off our feet with work. The last 12 months has seen a fantastic growth in demand for our heritage style gates, and the introduction of wrought iron has widened the scope immensely. We're continually adding more steel gate designs to the range in both country styles and wrought iron garden gate designs.

The Eleanor (above), one of our first larger wrought iron gates introduced a year ago, has been extremely popular both in large and small versions, as has the more provincial style garden gate, the 'Florence' which was also introduced last year.

By the middle of the year we found that it was necessary to employ the services of another welder to assist Andrew in the workshop, freeing him up to do more designing and quoting of custom orders and also give him time to recover from a hip replacement. Graham Jonathan has been a welcome addition to our Farmweld team.

The warmer weather has brought out the gardeners all around Australia, over the last couple of months and again the workshop is busier than ever. Some designs which started out as custom gate designs for particular customers are being added to our standard gate range. A couple of the designs are shown here. We are getting more customers asking about unique custom designs for both gates and other items incorporating wrought iron. These include matching garden ornaments such as arches and trellises, which are the next items to be added to the website.

The website has been much neglected due to our overwhelming workload, but this is slowly to be rectified. If you like what you see here please tell your friends about us and leave a comment.

Heritage style wrought iron entrance gate

Farmweld has been busy creating more gates, this one however is not just suitable as a country gate but would also look lovely with an older heritage home.

The 'Eleanor' is made mainly of flat steel and features wrought iron ends and a centrepiece with spear. As with the previously released 'Florence' garden gate, this gate can be left raw and allowed to rust to give it that truly aged look or be powder coated to your choice of colour. The design is to be added to the Farmweld website shortly and more information is available by contacting Farmweld direct.

The gate is so new to the range that only a drawing is available at this stage and pricing is still being costed for sizes ranging from small garden gates through to the larger entrance gates. If you'd like a gate like this to grace your home, cottage garden or country property then contact Farmweld for more information ... just follow the link to our website at http://www.farmweld.com.au/

Wrought Iron Garden Gates - new release

Farmweld have added a new wrought iron garden gate to their existing range of heritage style country gates. This new gate design is the first in a series of wrought iron garden gates. The 'Florence' is a heritage style gate reminiscent of the turn of the century, heritage wrought iron gates and a design that even the famous garden designer Edna Walling would have loved. The frame of this wrought iron gate is made of flat steel with hand turned scroll work and solid steel vertical bars. The wrought iron 'C' scrolls have decorative hammered ends giving this gate a more formal look than Farmweld's other heritage style country gates.

Made entirely of untreated steel, the gate can be supplied as is and allowed to weather and rust adding to its charm. Like the other heritage style country gates from Farmweld, this wrought iron garden gate can be powder coated in any of the colours from the Interpon powder coating colour chart.

This garden gate would look beautiful displayed as a wall ornament, or more practically as a pleasing entrance or feature in your garden. This wrought iron gate would look stunning in a cottage garden or Edna Walling inspired garden.

Hinge sockets come standard and latches and hinge pins can be supplied. The pictured gate is 1250mm x 900mm, but can be made to any size as a garden gate or full sized wrought iron entrance gate.

For a short time only Farmweld is offering the pictured 900mm garden gate for only

$500 with FREE DELIVERY and ALL HARDWARE SUPPLIED.

A gate of this size will normally retail for $540 plus delivery and hardware so considerable savings are to be had.

ORDER NOW before the Christmas rush begins to avoid disappointment.

Farmweld heritage style country gates and wrought iron gates are available direct from the manufacturer and are delivered all around Australia via courier, at a reasonable rate. All gates are custom made to any size and Farmweld offer a gate design service.

When will it end??

Well it's finally happened. We've been anticipating another increase in steel prices for a while, knowing that one was due sometime this month, but at the worst we were expecting an increase of maybe 15% max. I contacted our Bluecope Steel sales rep on Wednesday to enquire about a particular product and asked when the increase was due ... mainly as we were only notified of the last couple of increases a few days before they hit. Not good as it meant that any quotes that went out that week were basically out of date already! Anyway, he informed me that the long awaited hike was due on the 1st of July. Tubular products are going up by 26%. I just about dropped off my perch like a dead budgie!

It seems that the worldwide shortage is having a bigger effect than anyone expected. Steel distributors have been given 'allocations'. Once they sell out they have nothing more till the next allocation (which I believe is in August). It seems that the eastern states have already sold out of quite a bit of stock and are now looking to SA to fill their orders. Hopefully this wont have any impact on the steel we buy but who knows? I've heard that this situation is already wreaking havoc on the building industry.

What this means for us though, is that if any of our valued customers are looking to place an order for our heritage style gates or stock equipment we are recommending that you do so sooner rather than later. If we get your deposits through before Thursday 26th June we should still be able to order the steel in at current prices and honour all current quotes and price lists. Even if you're not ready 'yet', we can at least buy the steel in and make your item up later on.

On another note, we've recently had to add an amendment to the 'conditions' on our invoices, that items be collected within 14 days. Unfortunately there have been a very small number of clients who have paid deposits, and then left their items sitting here, unpaid for and uncollected for several months (one client left their item here for 12 months) with no communication whatsoever. We regret having to do this but as we rely on final payment to keep our business going, it's ended up being a necessity. That having been said, we understand that "stuff happens" so if you're having trouble paying or collecting your items please let us know and talk to us. We'll see how we can help.

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.