Structural & ornamental iron · Pelfrey Iron Co., Ashfort · Est. 1992
The stamp before the spark. The folder after it.
Pelfrey fabricates structural steel, guards and period iron for Ashfort’s builders and its conservation officers alike — AWS D1.1 procedures, calculation sheets with every guard, and finishes chosen by exposure rather than by margin.
33 years on Ironmonger Lane · every guard ships with its load calculation · hot-dip galvanizing on all exterior work
Since 1992
The works on Ironmonger Lane
A structural bay, an ornamental bench and a drafting table that has outlasted three owners of the building. Half our work is engineered steel for the town’s builders; the other half is the iron its oldest streets are made of — and both halves leave through the same folder: stamped drawings, weld log, load sheet, finish schedule. The conservation officers have our number for the second half. The inspectors have it for the first.
The folder outlives the invoice
Stamped drawings, the weld log with its amp ranges, the guard’s load calculation, the finish schedule and the warranty — bound, tabbed and yours. If Ashfort ever asks your steel a question in thirty years, the answer is already on a page.
Rates & fabrications
The shop card
The same card the builders price from, published for everyone. Exterior rates carry the zinc kettle in the number — hot-dip galvanizing is not an upgrade here, it is the exterior system.
Fabrication & rates
Structural steel — fabricated & set$118 / hr + steel
AWS D1.1 procedures, weld log, stamped package
Railings & guards$98–146 / linear ft
Load-calculated, push-tested, sheet in the folder
Gates — drawn per openingfrom $2,150
Wind-load checked, conduit framed, bearings hung
Period & ornamental ironfrom $95 / linear ft
Matched from photographs, aged to sit beside the original
Stair stringers — plasma-cut pairsfrom $260 / stringer
Drilled, notched, load-rated for the run
Mobile repair & site welding$95 / hr
Ashfort and the vale, usually same-week
How it goes
Five movements, every job
The measure
Tape, laser and photographs of every anchoring surface — and the load path sketched on paper you keep before we leave the site.
The stamp
Dimensioned drawings, calculations where the structure asks, finish schedule by exposure — reviewed, stamped and signed before steel is ordered.
The floor
Plasma-cut parts, frames pinned square on jigs, MIG where the load lives and TIG at eye level — every structural weld logged with its amperage.
The finish
Exterior work blasted and hot-dipped; interiors take zinc primer and two-pack. The schedule chooses, never the mood.
The folder
Set, torqued, push-tested with a gauge — then the folder lands on your table, tabbed, bound and finished.
2025 — 2026
Iron in Ashfort
Six fabrications from the last year, photographed at handover — half engineered, half ornamental, all of it through the same folder.
The folder arrived before the steel did — stamped drawings, weld procedure, the guard calculation. Our inspector read it standing up and signed on the second page. In nineteen years of hiring steel fabricators, that was a first.
They matched a railing the foundry that made it has not existed since the fifties. The conservation officer walked the row twice and could not say which run was new — and then they handed HER the load sheet, which she tells me no ornamental iron has ever done.
Quote, kettle, powder, torque sheet — four documents and not one surprise. The school stair was assembled in a morning and the gallery guards passed their push test in front of the governors, which the head has now made a tradition.
The five we always get
Straight answers
From builders, conservation officers and homeowners alike — the answers are the same whoever asks. The works line at the bottom runs six to five, and the person who answers owns the folder.
Do I need an engineer, or do you?
For straightforward beams and guards, our calculations and the building department’s checklist suffice. For anything structural that is genuinely novel — long spans, unusual loads, the Shambles’ crooked openings — we bring in Maddox & Vann on Chapel Street and carry the stamped package ourselves. We will not size a beam from a look and a handshake; the town outlives all of us.
Galvanizing versus zinc primer — the honest version?
Zinc-rich primer is seventy-five microns of zinc-bearing paint: a good shop finish for dry interiors. Hot-dip galvanizing is eighty-five to a hundred microns of zinc fused to the steel, and it is the only exterior system we sell — the kettle is in the exterior rate because the weather does not negotiate. Any Ashfort shop quoting primer for outdoor work is quoting you the second winter.
Can you repair our 1920s ironwork?
It is half our trade. We weld the original where the section is sound, cut matching sections from photographs where it is not, and finish the repairs to sit beside a century of weather rather than shame it. Bring photographs — the odd profiles are usually two standard patterns wearing a century of paint.
What amp settings do your welders run?
On 1/8-inch wall: TIG at 105–120 amps, a 3/32 lanthanated tungsten and 308 filler on stainless. Structural laps: MIG at 24 volts. Sixteen-gauge sheet: 60 amps, or it becomes lace. The ranges are written in the weld log beside the welder’s initials — a number you can check is the whole point of the folder.
How far will you travel?
Ashfort and the vale for the mobile rig, usually same-week. Fabrication travels anywhere a truck can — the corn exchange guards went out at forty metres in one run — and setting travels with the folder and the gauge.
The works, in figures
Stamped packages inside five days · (555) 015-4479 · office@pelfreyiron.example
Send the span, get the stamp
Drawings if they exist, photographs if they do not. Structural work comes back with a stamped package inside five days; ornamental work comes back with a question about the period. office@pelfreyiron.example