Restoration of Ironwork

Antique ironwork is the crowning ornament of an historical building. But neglect, accidents, vandalism or just the slow passage of time can turn the most magnificent gate or railing into a crumbling, rusted eyesore. Restoration can be a major challenge - even finding someone to undertake the project can be difficult. Everyone wants their property to be as beautiful as possible, and the lack of available expertise has forced many to scrap their antique ironwork entirely.

But there is always hope – in two decades of restoration work, I have never seen a project that was downright impossible to bring back to its original glory.

The restoration of ironwork requires not only technical knowledge, but the artistic ability to match the work of the past, and to restore historical ironwork to its original magnificence. The methods and materials used by metalworkers have changed completely in the last hundred years, and work done exclusively with modern methods does not match what was done in the 19th or early 20th century.

Today, Almost all decorative ironwork is assembled from mass-produced components, parts stamped out in giant Asian factories and tacked together with a welder. A glance shows even the most expensive welder-fabricator designs to be lifeless collections of prefab parts.

Ornate lighting, lamposts, gates or wrought-iron railings were all once made by skilled artisans displaying years of training and technical skill. Made by hand, the work was unique to each shop and often unique to each building – not picked out of a catalogue or design brochure. Then, as now, the goal was to impress.

But the modern blacksmith has many more tricks up his sleeve than even the best fabricator.

To restore the beauty of historical metalwork means using the same tools and techniques that created it. The methods of the blacksmith can match any style, from any time period. Baroque, Rococo, Empire, Neo-Gothic, Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau, Modernist – these styles and hundreds more can be restored, rebuilt, or entirely re-constructed.

One-hundred and 50 years of rust

Unfortunately, not all modern blacksmiths are well-educated in historical ironwork, and even fewer are trained in its preservation or restoration. If you wish to bring your piece back to its pristine state, a blacksmith engaged in restoration requires specialized knowledge, skills and practical experience.

Once you manage to find a blacksmith, how can you know they have the requisite skills? We are naturally worried about wasting time and money, and there are no shortage of disaster stories that result from hiring the wrong specialist.

Reputation – the blacksmith community is small, so hacks don't last very long without being found out. The competition is tight and margins are low. If the smith you're talking to has been in business any length of time, that's a solid indicator that they're at least competent.

Expertise – Ask them to explain your project back to you. They should understand both what you need, and be able to explain how it can be accomplished. There is a great deal of technical knowledge required in restoration work, so any professional should know enough about their trade to clearly explain what is needed.

Experience – A portfolio is less helpful than you might think. Each restoration job presents new challenges and usually needs a unique approach, so it is difficult to make direct comparisons. But blacksmithing is a skilled trade, so the quality of their previous work will be obvious even if it's not exactly the same type of project. Look at the overall quality of work – the skills and attention to detail are what count.

Finally, quality and careful craftsmanship will always tell. Through the rust and neglect of centuries, the beauty of the old ways is still obvious, even if it’s come to us broken and twisted. Wherever we can, we owe it to ourselves to preserve, or even rebuild the beauty and inheritance that has been passed down to the present.

A fully-restored 1870 Weathervane

Rod Iron Railings

The name makes sense, so it is difficult to see how it might be wrong. In Ontario, the very restrictive building code makes most railings very plain, with all-vertical elements. With nothing but vertical bars in a row, why wouldn’t it be called a Rod Iron Railing? The whole railing is made of iron rods – what could be more obvious?

But this is trick of the ear, like a misunderstood song lyric. One that you can blame on the building code, on technological progress, and a bad shortage of blacksmiths here in the 21st century.

Iron rods don’t make Wrought Iron

What you mean when you say “Rod Iron”, is in fact “Wrought Iron”. They sound almost identical, and unless you grew up in a blacksmith shop, how are you supposed to know the difference? And while a Rod-Iron seems self-evident, “Wrought Iron” has many different meanings.

Today, it is often used as a catch-all term for any decorative metal railing, whether it is made of wrought-iron, steel, cast iron or even aluminum. Anything but a chain-link fence gets marketed as “Wrought-iron”.

But long ago, wrought iron was both a material, a process, and a style. Blacksmiths work with iron (the black metal), and to be “wrought” means to be worked – to be hammered and shaped and transformed.

Old-time blacksmiths (and modern ones) were particular about their terminology: for a piece to be wrought it must be heated and hammered and bent. This distinguished wrought iron work from bent iron – work that had been bent or formed cold, usually out of thinner flat bars and usually simple and unsophisticated.

Almost all of the “Wrought-iron” ironwork you see today fits this second definition. (Even if the railing is made of iron rods.)

Whether that's good or bad you can decide for yourself.

How Much do Wrought Iron Railings Cost?

The quick answer is, “It depends”. A simple handrail or an entrance railing can be priced by the linear foot - anywhere from $75 to $200 a foot, depending on the complexity.

Even a very simple railing can have character.

Larger or custom pieces, such as a French balcony rail or a decorative garden fence, are more like commissioning a piece of art, and the cost can vary widely. This approach is explained Here.

Why is wrought iron expensive?

To answer this question requires some explanation:

"Wrought Iron" has two meanings in the 21st century, one meaning for blacksmiths and one meaning for others. To most people, a "wrought iron railing" is simply a railing made out of steel, painted black, often with machine-twisted scrolls or cast-iron ornaments welded on.

It's the labor

This kind of "wrought iron" requires a great deal of hand-labor to assemble and finish, which increases the cost over production or retail railings, which can be churned out by largely-automated assembly lines.

Real wrought iron

But to the blacksmith, a "wrought iron railing" is a railing made of wrought iron. "Wrought iron", to the blacksmith, is not a style (we have dozens of styles of ironwork, spanning thousands of years) but a specific metal.

Wrought iron was our main metal, for railings and everything else a blacksmith made, up until the late 19th century. Wrought iron is basically very pure iron, made by keeping pig iron molten and forcing air across it to remove the carbon. This results in a very pure iron, with some silica dissolved in it from the melting process. When extruded into bars, this silica forms a ropey texture that you can sometimes see on old wrought iron artefacts.

Wrought iron and Mild Steel

Wrought iron was replaced by mild steel, when they developed the Bessemer process. Everyone will tell you that mild steel is far superior to wrought iron, and in many ways it is. It is stronger, more uniform, and -critically- it is 30% cheaper to manufacture than the cheapest wrought iron.

But the people saying that aren't blacksmiths. For artistic hand forging, wrought iron is the superior material. It is more ductile and more easily worked into ornate shapes, and - most importantly - it does not corrode in the same way as mild steel. When the paint flakes off a wrought iron railing, the iron simply turns black, and stays that way. Left to itself, mild steel will rust into orange dust.

Modern “Wrought Iron”

Today, almost all ironwork is done with mild steel, which increases the necessary maintenance and the effort of construction. Real wrought iron hasn't been manufactured since 1963, so restoration projects or new work using wrought iron must repurpose old scrap or the ever-dwindling supply of unused stock.

This makes real wrought iron precious, and rare. So, aside from the technical skill required to use it to its full potential, the materials cost for true wrought-ironwork is at a premium. Like many things in life, "you get what you pay for": beware of people who say they can save you money. Whether iron railings, painting, finish carpentry or any custom work, seldom do we wish we had gone with the lower-quality option.

Rivets - one of many rich details of traditional ironwork

How much will my project cost?

How much do iron stair rails cost? Our metal railings are all unique. Whether stair railings, balcony railings, wrought iron fences or driveway gates, all of our work custom designed and built specifically for each client and to fit each setting. This makes it impossible to give a general estimate of price, but some general guidelines and considerations are possible.

Your particular project

Your home or business is unique, and the ironwork for it should also be. We have no interest in creating the same railing over and over, or building and installing duplicate iron gates on every house in the neighborhood. It is very important to us that your railing or gates We work closely with each client to ascertain your individual tastes and specific needs, and create a solution tailored specifically for you.

Size and Style

The size of the project, and the amount of ornament. These are the major factors that determine the cost of any wrought iron project. Ornate iron gates guarding your driveway simply require more time and ability than a welded frame of I-beams. Even with the most At the upper levels, a custom design for a very sophisticated piece, a stair railing or may take several weeks - or sometimes months - of design, forging and assembly to complete.

Whatever your need - railings, gates, balconies or fences, we can make it a reality.