ARROYO DOOR & IRON · VALDESSERO & MISSION TABLE · ONE MILL, ONE FORGE
Cedar, iron and arithmetic — the mission door, drawn and forged to the opening.
Arroyo builds swing-out and sectional doors for the valley’s older estates — Spanish cedar and iroko from a single mill, wrought-iron straps and hinges forged to pattern at our own fire, torsion pairs wound to the door’s weighed pounds, and every commission drawn onto a photograph of the house before a board is cut. Twelve commissions a season. The list opens in October.
THE COMMISSION LIST — twelve names a season, opened each October. Iron is cut to the pattern traced from your house, never from a rack: forge@arroyodoor.example for the list and the current wait.
Services
What the forge takes on
01
Spanish cedar, quarter-sawn — from $6,200
The mission valley’s own door wood: quarter-sawn for stability, light enough that a matched torsion pair barely notices the door is wood, and fragrant in the shop for a month after the hang. Drawn to the opening, primed and finished at the bench, hung by the two who cut it. 50,000-cycle pair standard.
02
Iroko & white oak — from $5,400
The estate alternatives: iroko where the weather comes off the fields, oak where the house wants its door to read as its own timber. Both acclimated a fortnight in the garage they will serve, both finished in oil that asks for a cloth every few years and nothing else.
03
Iron & hardware, forged to pattern — from $1,850
Straps, pulls, hinges and clavos cut to the pattern traced off the house’s surviving hardware — or drawn new where the original is gone. One forge, one hammer man, and every piece quenched in the same oil the mission blacksmiths used, because some recipes should not be improved.
04
Restoration of the 1920s originals — from $2,200
The valley is full of beautiful mission doors hanging on tired guts. We re-glue the joinery, replace the shattered panels from matched stock, re-forge the worn iron, and re-hang the whole on modern track with a torsion pair sized to the door’s honest aged weight — the face keeps its century, the physics get this one.
Drawn, forged, hung — 2026 bench rates
The forge card
Every price is the whole commission: the tracing visit, the drawing, the acclimation fortnight, the hang, and the first oiling at twelve months — which is on us, because doors that drink early drink evenly.
Spanish cedar commission, drawn & hungfrom $6,200
Quarter-sawn · mortise-and-tenon rails · insulated core behind real board · 50,000-cycle pair
Iroko or white oak commission, drawn & hungfrom $5,400
The estate alternatives · oiled finish, renewed with a cloth every few years
Iron & hardware, forged to the tracingfrom $1,850
Straps, pulls, hinges and clavos · one forge, quenched in the mission oil
Restoration of the 1920s originalsfrom $2,200
Joinery re-glued · panels matched from stock · iron re-forged · modern track and matched pair
The drawing alone$280, credited
Your elevation rendered with the door on it · yours to keep whoever hangs it
The twelve-month oiling visitincluded
Cloth, oil, ladder and the first year’s weather check — on the forge
The tracing visit
Opening, headroom and side room to the sixteenth — then the hardware traced: paper over the surviving strap, charcoal over the hinge, the pattern your house already wears carried back to the forge intact.
The drawing
Your elevation photographed, the door rendered onto it in the chosen species and iron, hardware scheduled beside. You approve a picture of your own house, and the drawing is yours whoever hangs the door.
The mill and the fire
Boards cut and acclimated a fortnight in your garage; iron cut to the tracing, forged, quenched, and fitted to the finished rails while the wood is still resting. You receive photographs of both benches before anything assembles.
The hang, one day
Track and torsion pair sized to the door’s weighed pounds, sections stacked, straps landing where the drawing puts them, the clavos set last because there is no second strike with a clavo.
The two-finger test
Opener off, door to waist height — it holds like a curtain on a rod. Then two fingers at the handle: it opens. You do both, you sign the drawing, and the twenty-five-year joinery warranty runs from that afternoon.
How a commission runs
From tracing to two-finger test
Twelve commissions a season, each through the same five movements — the only variables are the species and how stubborn the house’s original iron turns out to be.
The drawing is the contract
Species, sections, iron pattern, finish, spring pair — one drawing, signed twice, attached to the invoice. If the door that hangs in your opening differs from that drawing in any particular, the difference is ours to make right at our cost.
Commissions & restorations
From the forge, lately
Six doors the valley has already formed an opinion about, photographed the week each went up.
Thirty seasons at the same fire
The forge, in figures
They traced the iron off the gate hardware my great-grandfather bought from the mission blacksmith, forged the new straps to that pattern, and hung cedar that smells like the church I was married in. The two-finger test was passed by my youngest, on a stepstool, to applause.
Our 1926 door was beautiful and lethal — a two-person lift with the opener off. They re-glued every joint, kept every panel, re-forged the worn hinge, and hung it on track and springs sized to what it weighs today. It lifts with two fingers and the street cannot tell they were here.
The conservation board wanted “like for like or nothing,” and every builder before Arroyo brought them a brochure. Arroyo brought a drawing of our own courtyard wall with the door rendered onto it, a tracing of the mission hardware, and the mill’s species certificate. Approval took nine days. The door that hangs there now is the door on that paper down to the clavo spacing, and when the crew chief handed me the drawing at the two-finger test he said, “This was always yours — we only kept the charcoal.” I have sent three neighbours since, and the list keeps filling for a reason.
Before the list opens
Questions asked at the forge
The five every commission begins with. Anything stranger, the forge answers between eight and six, or forge@arroyodoor.example any hour at all.
Why only twelve commissions a season?
Because every decision in a wood and iron door is one two people can hold: which board faces the weather, where the grain turns, how deep the clavo sits, how hot the quench. A third bench would double output and halve the number of decisions we could honestly claim — and the valley’s houses did not wait a century to become somebody’s volume.
Cedar, iroko or oak — which is my door?
Match the house and its weather. Cedar for the stucco and the courtyard walls — the mission answer, fragrant, forgiving, silvering beautifully if you let it. Iroko where the fields throw weather at the elevation; oak where the house wants its door to read as its own framing. A photograph of the elevation answers it in minutes at the tracing visit.
Is wrought iron on a garage door practical or just beautiful?
Both, when it is forged rather than cast: the straps carry load into the rails, the pulls take the hand, and a properly quenched hinge outlives the truck that delivered it. Cast replicas chip and rust at the first frost; forged iron with oil in it wears like the mission originals — which is to say, longer than the house has stood so far.
What maintenance does a commission ask?
An oiling every three to five years by species and aspect — a cloth, an hour, and we will do the first one free at twelve months because doors that drink early drink evenly. The iron wants its oil wipe at the same visit. There is no other schedule, no sealant to renew, no clause in the warranty about weather.
Can the door I already own be saved?
Usually, if its frame is fundamentally sound and its wood is old-growth — which in this valley describes most doors older than the highway. The restoration re-glues the joinery, replaces what shattered from matched stock, re-forges the worn iron, and re-hangs the century-old face on modern track with a torsion pair sized to its honest current weight. From $2,200 and six weeks on the bench.
The list opens each October and holds twelve names · (555) 152-4478 · forge@arroyodoor.example · the drawing is yours whoever hangs the door
Ask for a place on the list
A photograph of the elevation and the rough age of the house starts it. The tracing visit that follows is ninety minutes, costs nothing, and ends with a pattern of your own hardware in charcoal. forge@arroyodoor.example