Custom Ironworks and Metal Fabrication

Why a fence company runs a fabrication shop

Most fence companies order panels from a catalogue. We make things out of steel, and that isn't a side business — in Charleston it's a necessity.

Inside the city's Board of Architectural Review districts — the Old and Historic District, the Old City District, Landmark Overlay Zones and Historic Corridor Districts — the BAR's published requirements are unambiguous: chain link, aluminum, vinyl and PVC are not appropriate and will not be approved. Metal fences must be hot-rolled steel or wrought iron, with welded joints and concealed fasteners. Pre-manufactured aluminum panels are generally rejected.

That is a fabrication specification, not a catalogue order. Welded joints and concealed fasteners mean someone has to weld and dress the joint and hide the hardware. If you've been told your downtown fence "has to be custom," this is why — and it's exactly the work our shop exists to do.

What we make

• Custom gates — pedestrian, garden and driveway, designed to match an existing fence, an existing house, or a neighbouring historic gate.
• Railings and handrails, with or without a graspable handrail, built to the code that applies to the stair or landing.
• Rail work at any scale, from a single porch step to a full balcony run.
• Steel grating — durable, cost-effective, and the right answer for drainage and access covers.
• Wire mesh partitions for securing storage cages, tool cribs and separated areas inside a building.
• Mobile welding — we bring the shop to you for on-site repairs and installations.

The details that separate real ironwork from imitation

Welded, not bolted. A welded joint, ground and dressed, becomes one continuous piece of metal. A bolted joint is two pieces of metal held near each other, and it will eventually work loose and weep rust from the fastener.

Concealed fasteners. Where hardware is unavoidable, it's hidden. This is both an aesthetic standard and the BAR's explicit requirement.

Hot-rolled steel. Heavier and more forgiving to work than the thin extruded stock used in pre-manufactured panels, and it takes forged detail — scrollwork, twists, hammered texture — that aluminum simply cannot.

Rust is the whole problem, and it is solvable

Iron and salt air are old enemies. Anyone who tells you their ironwork will never rust in Charleston is selling something. What good fabrication does is make corrosion slow, predictable and manageable rather than inevitable.

That means proper surface preparation before any coating goes on, a quality primer, and a durable topcoat — powder coating where the piece can come to the shop, high-performance paint systems where it can't. It means avoiding water traps in the design: places where rain collects and sits, inside a bottom rail or a hollow post. And it means a maintenance conversation: an annual look at the joints and the base of every post, touching up a chip before it becomes a hole.

Repair and restoration

Charleston is full of ironwork worth saving, and the BAR generally will not permit removing an existing historic wall or fence. Frequently the right answer isn't a new gate — it's repairing the one that's been there for a century: replacing a rusted-through bottom section, re-hanging a gate whose hinge post has shifted, matching an existing picket profile so the repair disappears.

Our mobile welding rig exists for this. A sagging gate, a broken rail, a post sheared at the base — most of it can be fixed in place, in a morning, without dismantling anything.

What to expect from us

Free estimates within two to three business days. Most projects completed within three to four weeks, depending on the complexity of the fabrication. A one-year warranty on labour and materials. Fully licensed and insured, serving both residential and commercial clients, and forging metal in the Lowcountry since 1989.