Gates/Doors - Forged

In order to be placed in this category, all gates and/or doors, excluding driveway gates must contain custom hand forged elements.

Gold Winner:
Atrium Homes
El Paso, Texas

The design was inspired by the Designer and drawn by the fabricator. The complete project from drawings, finish selection, fabrication and installation took almost 1.5 years. The complete Unit with transom and sidelights measures 9 ft. wide by 13 ½ ft. tall. The actual operating door itself is 4 ft. wide by 10 ft. tall. One of the biggest challenges was to have identical iron work detailing on both sides of the transom and sidelights, and to be able to open the scroll work to clean the glass when needed. Therefore, custom hinges were fabricated and added within the frames to disguise the clasp that show that both sides open. The second challenge was the finish. We used a two-part Urethane color as a base then a custom technique was applied by hand first with one color, then a second color with similar technique was applied and finally a top coat of Clear Guard.

The fabrication took 640 hours and the finish took 120 hours.

Silver Winner:
Wiemann Metalcraft
Tulsa, Oklahoma

Wiemann Metalcraft created a forged door and jamb for a residential home.

This door mixes traditional and modern culture and represents the popular trend nowadays.The door consists of six big Chinese Knots, inherits Chinese traditional culture and expresses best wishes. The bronze flowers catch people’s eyes at first sight and is the finishing point of this door. The door is made of Low Carbon Steel and holds bronze flowers, a double-sided lock with handles, 3/4" tempered insulated glasses and removable fly-screen, etc. The door was created with mixed cutting techniques and forging. The scroll works was made by skillful workers and the smooth curved plate was done by exacted machines. The greatest challenge to make this door was the symmetry; symmetry of two door slabs, symmetry of the same door slab. Every small part of one slab is the same as another slab, and you can find the same ones in the same slab as well. So it requests exact radian, correct direction and precise dimension of each scroll works. The Electrophoresis technique was used instead of the galvanizing technique, which is better to prevent the door from rusting. The door has powder coating not spray paint. A faux finish was done with a brush at the end.

This project took approximately 210 hours of labor.