Thinking about doing Wrought Iron Fencing-Never Welded Before
 

Ok, I've got about 200 feet of rotted fencing that the wifey wants to replace. 1/2 is on semi level ground and 1/2 is uphill. A double wide car gate and one or two pedestrian gates. I looked that the pre-made stuff at Home Depot and it seems like its about $12/foot me installing, its not going to work on the slope areas. Had a thought that I could buy a welder and do it myself. Trouble is, I know nothing about welding. I figure its a good way to learn how to do basic welding. I mean its a friggin fence after all. I'd need to buy some kind of welder, I can probably put some metal cutting blade on my chop saw and I can do post holes, concrete, etc. myself. Any of you welders out their ever done this. What else would I need (I think I have access to a welding helmet, the old fashioned kind). Where is the best place to buy welding stuff and wrought iron stuff. I probably wouldn't go for highly decorative.

What are U gona do to keep it square, and then there is the problem of getting the angle right for the slope...

This is a lot more work than you are thinking it may be IMHO. I would farm it out personally.

I've done a couple hundred feet of balcony rails, stair rails, handrails, etc., out of 1/2 square bar.. lot's of cutting and whole lot more welding. very time consuming, very boring work. it's still there 30+ years later though. Short arc is the way to go. Hugh... bought one more old car today.. picked up a 66 Mustang for my daughter.. She's been smiling since early this morning.

I have constructed several wrought iron gates but nothing on the order of 200'. As Joe indicated, it will be a LOT more work than you can imagine, the slope just adds insult to injury.
You will need a good MIG welder (with gas), a good quality helment(preferably auto-darken), gloves, a good grinder, etc etc.
You can probably get the above for $600+/- if you look around. Also you will need a lot of tubular steel, primer, paint, etc.
If you decide to do this, strongly suggest you take at least a basic welding course.

Aside from the scope of the project, I'll say this:

Last week I was about to pay someone $100 to weld up a snow plow mount on my Suzuki. A friend of mine offered me a 20 minute lesson on arc welding, and I was able to get a decent hang of it within 30 minutes or so. Within an hour I had the whole thing fabbed up.

Lotsa fun, and a great basic skill to have. I bet welding up a fence or gate would be a fun starter project, if you can afford the time.

Auto darkening helment $50. 3 pair leather welding gloves $6. Harbor Freight. 110 volt MIG sold there are cheap but not so great. you can have mine if you want it.. wouldn't be worth the shipping cost though. I borrowed a Holbart yesrterday to weld on my car and it's pretty good. used to sell them at HF for about $300. Small Lincoln MIGS are cheap and pretty good $270-$350. Shouldn't take but 30 minutes practice to make a decent weld for what you are doing.

How are U gona make the thing SQUARE again??? I musta have missed that part of this thread..

Your gona spend what $600 on equipment to Weld, + material, Paint and Primer and installation costs...What about Paint Brushes...ouppps need a Spray gun and don't forget U have to degrease the iron so the paint sticks. The guys who do this stuff use electrostatic so the paint goes on the Iron and not the ground.

Figure in your time...and what U could be doing instead..hmmm maybe U oughta get a coupla bids to just see what it will cost to have the job done, and then see if its worth your effort.

believe me... leveling, squaring, getting angles right are the EASY parts of the job. 200ft, 6" spacing, 1 cut per bar, 2 welds per bar minimum, top and bottom rails, setting posts, grinding, priming, painting, etc., etc. hope you have plenty free time.. doubt it cost less for the fence than you would have made during the lost time at work. but look at all the burns, grinder bites, blisters, flashes you'll miss out on if you pay to have it done.

The repetition would be awful. Mind numbing.

To make the fence sections uniform, you'll should make up some jigs. I think the best compromise would be to get someone to make up the sections for you, then you could weld them into the posts.

I had a 12' x 40' plate steel topped table to work on. layout with chalklines, tack in stops, cut bars to length, drop in bars, weld, flip and weld some more, lift out of jig, grind, sandblast and paint. nothing to it if you have the right equipment. my job along with so many other jobs was building handrails for all the oilfield work we fabbed at our shop. don't think I could get paid enough to do that again. ever! almost as bad as welding 1/4" stainless steel rods building up blowout preventer hydrils 8 hrs a day like another of my jobs then. mind numbing is an understatement

Why don't you do some looking around for fence from a commercial location that has been torn down by a demolition company? You might be able to score 200+ ft., anchor it and only have to do the cutting & welding at the angles and putting the sections together.

Hugh, why man, why?

If you have tons of time on your hands, well great. But I think the 'fun' factor is going to wear off very quickly with this.......

BTDT.

You can do it, but you'd be best served with setting up a few pieces to sacrifice to practice.

Are you talking about fabbing everything from scratch???

This is tedious, tedious work and HD is right, the fun factor will wear off quick. It did in my case.

Johnco brought up a great point re: an large layout table at a good working height. If you are planning on assembling the sections on your garage floor I hope your knees and back are in good shape.
From my experience only, until you get pretty good at welding you will spend a lot more time grinding than actually welding.

I think you guys are probably right. Think I'll do something else with my spare time. Thanks for the input.

I guess I'm just a hardcore DIY cheapskate. Last summer my bro and I built two 14' wide gates of 2x2 square stock. It took us 3 days (6 man-days) and $600 in materials, but the gates were quoted out at $2000 per each by the local fab shop. Let's just say I would do it again in a heartbeat, but not under the blazing June sun like last time.

I would get a quote on the work and then evaluate what it would cost to gear up and DIY. The ornamental shops do not work for cheap.

If the fence is made of square stock, price out at a steel supply house AND the ornamental iron shop. You'll need a welder (MIG is ideal), cutoff saw or bandsaw, and means to clean and paint the steel. Honestly, if you are not going to save $3500-5000 to DIY, I would not invest in the tools. On the other hand, if you plan to use the equipment on future projects, this might not be a bad idea.

For 200', I would plan no less than 2 full weeks of work for a lone man. This is not a simple or easy project, especially without the right tools.
regards,
Jurgen

$12 a foot is not bad considering the last time I did a couple hundred feet of Cedar fence, I charged $22ft and was much cheaper than all others. and that was 10-12 years ago, although I noticed the price of Cedar boards has dropped considerably since then. here's a thought.. buy the flat part pre-made if it can be replicated easily, fab the uphill parts yourself. should cut your work load quite a bit.

you can make the pre-fab wooden fence do what you want - you pick it up and drop it hard on a corner and it angles the entire length. this is how i've always worked with the pre-fab sections when working on a slope. works..fast..easy.
ryan