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.

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.