A homeowner in Lancaster, PA was doing a home renovation. As part of that renovation, he was doing an upgrade to a bedroom balcony. So they wanted to do a new iron balcony railing design. They also had a beautiful courtyard on the side of the house that had a need for an iron gate. So the client wanted to do wrought iron design that flowed in both the balcony railing and the courtyard gate. We landed on an intricate juliet balcony and iron gate design.
Also for the iron balcony railing design, they wanted an iron belly railing design. This created a serious challenge as the iron railing designs were very intricate panels that had forged scrollup ends, overlapping scrolls with rivets, and forged iron medallions. To make the intricate iron forged railing design meet code, a straight iron bar was designed, but that also had the same iron belly profile design.
The main scroll design was created from ½” round bar. The balcony railing posts were 1 ½” square bar. The bar channel was 1 ½” X ½”, and caprail was 2 1/4″ wide. For the iron gate, the main frame was ½” X 1 ½” flat bar and infill was all ½” round bar. The balls at the top were 1 ½” in diameter.
We finished this project to the CIW-2135-1 specs. So, we forged and shaped the main substrate, iron, to the intricate designs needed. Then we blasted it to a white metal. Next, we galvanized the project. We did this by dipping the piece in molten zinc heated to 835 degrees. Then we cleaned it up and brush blasted it. Then we powder-coated the entire project with a black matte powder. This detailed finish process provided an authentic looking front railing and gate.
The industrial process of hot dip galvanizing provided some inherent inconsistencies. Topped with the matte black powder-coat adding color, depth and definition, it really looked like an iron railing project that is 100 years old. And DOT rates this duplex finish system to 120 year until 20% failure! So with a combination of traditional techniques and current finishing processes, this intricate juliet balcony and iron gate can last for many decades.
