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Exterior Railings & Fences - Forged
This category includes all railings and fences containing custom hand forged elements.
Gold Winner:
The Heirloom Companies
Campobello, South Carolina
This client was very eclectic in her taste. She wanted a unique railing on the block. She provided a little direction in design, but The Heirloom Companies team interpreted the client's wishes as something that leaned more toward fantasy.
Aluminum was the material used. After cutting out the basic shapes, the team went to work cold forging and shaping them into the flowing shapes seen in the photo. The newels were intended to look as though they were growing out of the ground. A 4"pipe was used to start the newel fabrication process and then layers of flat plate were applied to give it an organic look. An acid based patina was applied for an earth tone color.
This project took approximately 175 hours.
Silver Winner:
Berryhill Ornamental Iron LLC
Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
This project was designed by the fabricator. The finish was a base powder coated black (hand rubbed glaze of PPG industrial automotive paint, bronze color was made for the Berryhill Ornamental Iron team). A "3" solid round bar, 2" solid round bar, 3/4" solid round bar, 5/8" solid round bar, 1/2" solid round bar, 1-1/4" x 1/4" flat bar, and 6" x 1/4" flat bar. There was approximately 300' of deck and stair railings on two separate areas at the client's lake home. All materials were power hammered, textured and drawn. All branch material was welded and ground for natural detail. The post design was created to give a bunched and banded branch effect. Middle section supports hammered from 3" solid stock to create a new trunk look. The client requested that all branches be terminated to prevent animal and child issues. The biggest challenge this team had was the 3.5 hr distance from shop for measuring and installation, as well as both decks and staircases, were torn out and rebuilt during the project.
This project took approximately 2,230 hours.
Bronze Winner:
Lynda Metcalfe Designs
Brasstown, North Carolina
Eleven panels of approximately 20" x 40" mild steel, with a mixture of heavily forged elements, traditional joinery, welding and laser cut parts. The figurative features in the panels were designed primarily by the landscape architect while the fabricator supplied design input for the scroll sections. The main challenge was to achieve as much of a three-dimensional feel as possible and keep the cartoon feel of the figures. The fabricator, Lynda Metcalfe, achieved this by laser cutting select elements using different stock thicknesses and added forged shaping to some elements. Another challenge was that the framework for the railing panels had to be installed early in the build process of the keep structure while the decorative panels were being worked on in several months time. The panels were framed in solid 1" square bar to help prevent warpage and bolted directly to the underside of the cap rail with brackets and to side brackets in the columns.
