Proof before prices
What the street says, unedited
The assessor read the load sheet, looked at the rail, and asked to keep a copy of the calculation for his own file. Fourteen metres of bridge guard, three winters of flood ice, and not one picket has moved.
My gate quote was three lines: the leaf, the wind load, the kettle. It was the only quote of five that mentioned galvanizing at all, and the only gate of the five still swinging true.
They rewelded a trailer axle bracket at 8 a.m. and I was loaded by ten. Two years on I brought them the whole shop canopy to fabricate, and the drawings came back load-rated before I had asked for that either.
Services & rates
The rate card
Published because a price you have to ask for is a price worth distrusting. Exterior rates include the zinc kettle; interior work takes zinc primer and two-pack at the shop, and the quote names which and why before you sign.
Railings & guards — fabricated & installed$94–140 / linear ft
Load-calculated, galvanized or primed to the exposure, push-tested
Gates — by designfrom $1,900
Leaf weight and wind load on the drawing; conduit framed in
Stair stringers — plasma-cut pairsfrom $240 / stringer
Drilled and notched for your treads, load-rated for the run
Brackets, mantels & canopy framesfrom $350
The small work the big shops decline to book
Mobile repair & site welding$95 / hr
The seven crossings, usually same-week
Galvanize + powder, two-coat exterior$34 / linear ft
Kettle first, colour second — the finish schedule salt respects
The seven crossings, 2025 — 2026
Recent sparks
Six jobs off the bench this year. Every exterior piece went through the kettle before the colour — the captions say which.
The shop
One bay behind the toll house
A 4,000-foot bay, a plasma table, a powder line and a kettle forty minutes down the road that we book by the week. Three certified welders, one draftsman who used to be the third welder, and a rule that has held since 2011: nothing leaves without its load sheet, and nothing exterior leaves in primer alone. The neighbours noticed the first rule before the second — which is why their words sit at the top of this page instead of ours.
The calculation ships with the rail
Every guard Quillrock builds carries its load calculation — the 200-pound push and the fifty-per-foot line, signed — in the handover folder. If anything we build ever fails an inspection on our numbers, the remedial work, the re-test and the apology are ours.
How it goes
Sketch to kettle in four moves
The measure
Tape, laser and photographs of every anchoring surface, across all seven crossings, usually the same week you call — and free.
The drawing
A dimensioned shop drawing, the load calculation on its face, the finish schedule — kettle or primer — named, and a fixed price under it.
The floor
Plasma-cut parts, frames squared on the bench, MIG in the joints that carry and TIG on the joints that show, all by certified hands.
The kettle and the hang
Exterior work hot-dipped, powdered, baked; then installed, torque-checked and push-tested by the crew that cut it.
The five we always get
Straight answers
If yours is not here, the shop line at the bottom runs six to six — and the person who answers is standing next to the person who would weld it.
What amp settings — and can I watch?
Watch from the screen. TIG on 1/8-inch stainless runs 105–120 amps behind a 3/32 lanthanated tungsten with 308 filler; 16-gauge sheet drops to 60 amps or it becomes a colander; structural laps go MIG at 24 volts. We publish the numbers because a shop that hides its settings is hiding its welds.
Galvanized or zinc primer — talk me through it?
Zinc-rich primer is paint that carries zinc — seventy-five microns, honest and right for dry interiors. Hot-dip galvanizing is eighty-five to a hundred microns of zinc fused into the steel, and it is the only exterior system we sell. Primer under weather is a two-season finish pretending to be a ten-year one, and we will not put our name on it.
Why does my railing need a calculation?
Because the code asks a guard to take a 200-pound push at any point and direction on the top rail plus fifty pounds per foot along it — and a rail that is copied rather than calculated passes on one porch and fails on the next span. The sheet costs us an hour and saves you an argument with an inspector.
Can you match the 1920s iron on my porch?
Photograph the picket profile straight-on and give us one caliper reading. The plasma table cuts the match from the photograph, and we finish the new run to sit beside the old iron rather than shame it — the crossing houses have four of those matches standing and nobody has found the seam.
How fast?
Repairs inside the week, crossings wide. Rails and gates two to four weeks, the kettle queue decides which, and we name the week at the quote. Bracket work sometimes ships in days — the plasma table likes small batches and so do we.
The bay, in figures
Free measures across the seven crossings · (555) 011-6328 · shop@quillrockfab.example
Send the span, get the sheet
Rough length, height and what it bolts to — enough for a per-foot estimate on rails and a drawn, load-rated price on gates. Photos help; so does admitting what the last crew did. shop@quillrockfab.example