How It's Made

Every piece in our Metalwork range is cut, finished and packed at our workshop on Knowsley Industrial Estate, Merseyside. Each order is made to order in our Knowsley workshop, and we'll confirm your dispatch date by email. Here is what happens between you placing an order and the parcel leaving our door.

1. The design file

Every design starts as a drawing in millimetres. Each is checked against our plasma design rules before cutting. Personalised items are set in one of our two stencil typefaces, Stencil Sans or Stencil Serif, using exactly the text you enter at checkout. We cut what you type, so please double-check spelling and spacing before you order.

2. Our plasma design rules, in plain words

  • Letters are at least 25 mm tall. Smaller lettering loses detail in steel. Long names wrap onto a second line rather than shrinking, which is why each personalised product has a character limit.

  • Stencil lettering keeps its bridges. Letters and numbers with enclosed centres, such as O, A, B, D, P, R, 4, 6, 8, 9 and 0, would lose their middles if cut solid. Stencil lettering leaves small bridges of steel so the centres stay in place.

  • No floating pieces. Every part of a pattern is tied back to the main sheet, so nothing drops out.

  • Webs and holes are never too thin. The steel between cut-outs is kept to at least twice the plate thickness and never under 5 mm, and holes are never smaller than 3 mm. That keeps fine patterns sturdy.

  • Softened inside corners. Inside corners have a small radius, which cuts cleaner.

  • Balanced open area. Pierced panels such as fence toppers, privacy screens and gate infills are designed with roughly a third to just over half of the panel open, so they look light without becoming flimsy.

  • Accurate slots. Slot-together items, including the fire pits, BBQ stand, windbreak, obelisk, log store and wine rack, have slots sized just wider than the plate so the parts push together by hand.

3. CNC plasma cutting

The approved file goes to our own CNC plasma table. The torch follows the drawing across a sheet of mild steel, cutting the pattern, the outline and any fixing holes in one pass. Most of the range is cut from 3 mm or 4 mm sheet, with heavier-duty pieces such as shelf brackets and the boot scraper cut from thicker plate.

4. Cleaning up the edges

Plasma cutting leaves a small amount of dross on the underside of the cut. Each part is deburred and the edges are cleaned up by hand so the piece is neat to handle and ready for its finish.

5. Folding and welding

A few items need more than a flat cut. Brackets that need a right-angle fold are formed on our press brake. Complete garden gates are fabricated and welded in our workshop, with the plasma-cut infill welded into a box-section frame. Coat racks, key racks and the bike hook have their hooks or arms located in cut tabs and welded in place.

6. Finishing

  • Raw steel: supplied bare. Outdoors it will rust to an orange-brown patina, and the run-off can mark pale paving or render below.

  • Rust patina: we give the steel an accelerated patina before dispatch, so it arrives already weathered.

  • Satin black or anthracite grey: powder coated for a durable coloured finish. Powder coating is carried out by [CONFIRM: powder-coat supplier or in-house].

  • High-heat black: a high-temperature paint used on fire pits and fire items.

Not every finish is offered on every product. You can read more on our care and finishes page.

7. Checking and packing

Before anything is packed, we check it against the order: the right design, size and finish, clean edges, slots that fit, and for personalised pieces, the text exactly as entered. Slot-together items are packed flat. See our delivery page for details.

Want something the range doesn't cover? The same table and team make one-off and small-batch work. Tell us about it through our custom metalwork quote form, or browse the full Metalwork shop.