Restoration
back in uni, we had a whole module on restoration work but I hadn’t had a chance to put the principles into practice till the project.
starting with the foundation of and already forged work is in some ways easier and in other ways much harder. The gates in the front and back gardens were very old and had all the expected problems associated with ironwork that’s lived for around 100 years, e,g Rust, loose fittings, damaged connections and paint ticker then my finger. but the hardest part of this job was the more modern gate at the back of the house it was maybe 25 to 40 years old and I had the hardest time getting the paint off of it, it took as long to get the paint of this one as it did the other two
Reforging
After striping them back I had to identify any areas that required removing and reporting this is a delicate process as pocking and prodding 100-year-old metal will quickly show you what needs fixing.
For this project, the main areas of the issue were the latches and the hinges, for two of the gates they need entirely new latches. re-forging the components of already existing gates is fairly straightforward if you have the original parts but, of course, if your client is happy you can always use the astatic of the gate to design new components.
The client also asked for a new drop blot for the front gate so they can keep it open. This had to be added to the existing frame without ruining the structural integrity.