The gate house approach.
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We were approached with a chance to bid on the largest project we'd ever received at a private residence. The buildings consist of the main house with rooms, kitchen and dinning facilities, and the gate house with its two bedrooms and storage down below. The overall presence is one of a Tuscan villa with tiled roof and stucco walls. The desire was to add black iron in a style resembling old Europe but with the accent on the black walnut leaf. The clients also wished to stay away from the mass produced look of the cut and paste shops. Rather than buy a pre-fabbed package with no character and looking like anything else on the market they chose to have their iron work hand crafted by White Hart Forge.
The gate house approach.
The Interior Rail
This whole piece was pretty much built, heated and welded into place at the site.
The components, pickets and ornament hot work was all done in the shop and then brought out for the final fit.
Each picket is upset at both ends with a tenon through the bottom and the top.
Each panel of ornamentation contains the repeat pattern of the black walnut limb and leafs.
Probably over 1000 hand forged leaves were used in this project.
The border picket for each ornament panel pierces the secondary rail and connects the top with the bottom.
For the interior rails we used the traditional brushed steel with oil and bees wax patina.
The upper landing has a newel post made from 1 3/4 inch solid square.
It matches the newel at the bottom.
We heated and twisted those ourselves using one 6 inch post vise, one large bending wrench, two long cheater bars and two people.
email WhiteHartForge@yahoo.com