Craftsmanship

SANDBLASTING

All our iron products are first sandblasted to provide not only a cleaning and de-scaling of the surface of the metal, but at the same time pits, or causes an indentation into the metal and provides a uniform anchor pattern. When the paint is sprayed into this "pit" it forms an anchor for the paint, as opposed to a smooth surface, which may allow the paint to pre-maturely flake off. Many fabricators skip the sandblasting step prior to painting, but it is essential for good adhesion of the paint.

POWDER COATING

Next the wrought iron is powder coated. Powder coating is the technique of applying dry paint to a part. In normal wet painting such as house paints, the solids are in suspension in a liquid carrier, which must evaporate before the solid paint coating is produced.

In powder coating, the powdered paint is electrostatically charged and sprayed onto the part. Because it is electrostatic ally charged, the particles are attracted to all surfaces of the ornamental wrought iron, even the back side of the intricate scrolls typical of our wrought iron pieces.

The part is then placed in an oven at 400 degrees, and the powder particles melt and coalesce to form a continuous film. The finished product is a baked on durable polyurethane paint system.

The correctly applied coating, although not metallurgically bonded to the metal will not crack, chip or peel as with conventional paint films.

PAINT SELECTION

Many colors are available, but we have selected the most desired colors. They are a flat black textured paint, a copper vein paint and a gloss black paint system (see below). For an additional fee, we can custom faux paint (antiquing) over the textured black finish. This consists of usually dry brushing a highlighting color, or colors over the black, to bring out the unique shapes of the filigree iron. The colors used in dry brushing are typically one of the three of the following: tan, grey, green and gold.

Zinc Primer

To provide additional rust protection for metal surfaces, in addition to powder coating, we can provide a zinc primer prior to powder coating. Zinc primer has gained wide acceptance because of its ability to protect steel structures by means of the zinc sacrificing to the parent steel (sacrificial anode) in the same manner as galvanizing.

Zinc primer is especially important if lighter colors of paint are selected or there are a lot of crevices where paint cannot penetrate (such as a lattice structures). The cost of zinc primer adds approximately 20% to the cost of the product