About Us

Compass Ironworks serves the Mid-Atlantic region and beyond, including waterfront areas subject to harsh elements. Our emphasis is on quality, service, and sustainability, creating timeless and stunning metal masterpieces for estate security gates, high-end interior and exterior railings, property security fences, and designer spiral, helical, and "floating" staircases.

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Founded in 1998

For more than two decades, Compass Ironworks has been a family owned business based in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. A unique blend of traditional and modern lifestyles is common in the area surrounding Compass, where horse and buggy rigs mingle with cars on the road.

Lancaster County is internationally known for its skilled artisans, impeccable craftsmanship, and dedicated work ethic. This is a fitting location for the work that Compass Ironworks creates in a 15,000 square foot shop. Here, centuries-old decorative iron styles are fashioned by a talented team of less than 10 artisans, using modern tools and up-to-date, highly durable finishing techniques. It is a place where craftsmen can work at their trade and still watch their neighbors as they work in the fields, planting, cultivating, and ultimately harvesting the crops of corn and hay, seeing the beauty of nature and drawing inspiration for their work.

Compass forges and fabricates highly ornate works of art from iron or solid aluminum for a certain sophisticated clientele. We collaborate with architects, designers, builders, and homeowners to provide the very best ornate "ironwork" for our client's specific design vision. We utilize raw materials with 97-100% recycled content, and a robust and eco-friendly powder-coat that is VOC-free and 99.9% reclaimable.

AREAS WE SERVE

We are located in Gap, PA, a little farming town on the eastern edge of Lancaster County. Due to our location, we have the honor to serve Contractors, Designers, Architects, and homeowners primarily in a 3 hour radius; from DC to NYC. Through word of mouth, a large portion of our work is at the Jersey Shore, providing railings, fencing, and spiral and helical staircases that have been specifically made to withstand the harsh coastal elements.

We also provide ornamental ironwork to clients all over the USA; however, we primarily will provide the product ONLY and not installation. In these cases, we have had created projects as far south as Flordia, and as far west as California!

TIMEFRAME & COST

TIMEFRAME

Our timeframe from initial call to completion of a project varies greatly. The level of intricacy, scope, and material availability will generally drive the amount of time it will take. There are many projects that take only a few weeks from start to finish. These projects, however, are mainly smaller and straightforward to fabricate.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are projects in which we collaborate with an architect, designer, or client to unearth their design sensibilities for weeks, months, even a year. Depending on project intricacy or scope, the actual creation of a custom spiral metal staircase could be weeks, months or even a year. A custom driveway gate could take three to six months to create. Wrought iron fence or aluminum fence projects could be two to four or six months.

Case in point: Compass Ironworks was involved in an intensive project that took three years to complete. We have no project available off the shelf. This eliminates additional cost and allows us to create your specific design, color, and size specific to your project.

COST

Because of the high caliber of customization offered by Compass Ironworks, the cost of a wrought iron metal fence, a custom driveway gate, or modern stair railing cannot be thrown out there as cost per foot. If the same level of detail were on a project that is 5 feet, 50 feet, or 500 feet, cost would be different. There is definitely a sliding scale or economies of scale, but many factors affect cost. Raw materials, complexities of style (which affects cost in the design stage), creating and fabrication, as well as install, all affect cost. In addition, level of finish requirements, travel time and logistics, and expected timeframe to completion, affect cost. A quicker expected completion means we potentially pay a premium for raw materials.

Our goal is the best quality at a fair price. There are others that will undercut us on price, but usually cut detail, craftsmanship, and powder coat quality to get the job. Conversely, we do have quality competitors that provide the same caliber of fence, stair, handrail, or wrought iron garden fence that in a few cases, charge over a hundred thousand dollars more for the same project. Again, our goal is the best quality at a fair price.