The mill shore, 2025 — 2026
Off the floor this season
Six builds and repairs from the last two seasons, photographed at handover. Anything that touches the river left here hot-dip galvanized — the caption says so, and so does the warranty.
Quay & dock work
$120per hour, rig included
- Ladders, bollards, catwalks & cleats
- Hot-dip galvanizing on everything wet
- Diver-ready template fitting on tides
- Weld procedures logged joint by joint
Two-hour minimum per tide window.
Railings & guards
$96–142per linear ft, installed
- Load-calculated to the 200-lb code push
- Galvanized, or zinc primer + two-pack inside
- Pickets, cable or glass-ready frames
- Calculation sheet in every handover folder
The load sheet is yours to keep, stamped.
Repair road calls
$95per hour + steel at cost
- Mobile rig across the Bend, same week
- Sagged gates, cracked welds, plough damage
- Rewelded stronger than the first build
- Written verdict when scrap beats repair
The call-out sits inside the first hour.
The Foundry Slip yard
Zinc primer is a shop finish. The river disagrees.
A zinc-rich primer is seventy-five microns of paint that hosts zinc — honest protection for a stairwell or a warehouse rack. Hot-dip galvanizing is eighty-five to a hundred microns of zinc fused to the steel itself, and it is the only finish we will send below the flood line. The rule at Slaghill is older than the sign: if the river can reach it, it goes in the kettle. Primer-only work leaves here for dry interiors, and we say which is which on the quote — not after the first ice.
Galvanized means galvanized
Any Slaghill work installed below the flood line carries a twenty-year finish warranty — because it was hot-dipped, not primed and hoped. If the zinc fails inside twenty years, the re-dip, the refit and the barge are ours.
The five we always get
Straight off the tide table
The questions the shore has asked us since 2008. If yours is stranger, the yard line at the bottom runs six to six and answers over the grinder noise.
What amp settings do you actually weld at?
On 1/8-inch wall stainless we TIG at 105–120 amps with a 3/32 lanthanated tungsten and 308 filler — slow enough to stack dimes, hot enough to penetrate in one pass. Dock ladders in 3/16 pipe take 115 amps and a walked cup. Structural laps go MIG at 24 volts, and 16-gauge sheet drops to 60 amps because thin metal punishes impatience faster than any inspector.
Galvanizing or zinc primer — which is my job?
Primer is paint with zinc in it: seventy-five microns, sprayable, right for dry interiors and sheltered stairwells. Hot-dip galvanizing fuses the zinc into the steel itself and is the only finish we send anywhere the river, road salt or a snowplough can reach. The quote names the finish and the reason — we do not sell the cheap one to a wet job.
Are your railings load-calculated?
Every guard is calculated to take the code’s 200-pound push at any point and direction on the top rail, plus fifty pounds per linear foot along it — and the calculation sheet ships in the folder with the weld log. The building department at the Belt Line files ours without a follow-up call, which is the actual compliment.
Can you weld on the dock itself, underwater fittings?
We weld everything above the waterline from the barge or on the tide window. Below it we template, fabricate and galvanize on shore, then fit with a diver crew we have worked beside for a decade. Steel and electricity both take water seriously, and so do we.
How fast is a repair?
The mobile rig covers the whole Bend and usually lands inside the week. Dock work answers to the tide table rather than the calendar — we book the window, the crew and the kettle in the same call, and the quote names the tide.
How it goes
Tide window to handover folder
The measure, on the tide
Tape, laser and photographs of every anchoring surface — taken at low water when there is something to measure. The load path is sketched on paper you keep before the rig leaves.
The drawing and the number
A dimensioned shop drawing with the load calculation on its face and the finish named in writing — kettle or primer, never a shrug. Fixed price, signed on your phone.
The floor
Plasma-cut parts, frames pinned square on jigs, MIG where the load lives and TIG at eye level. Every structural weld is laid to a certified procedure and logged joint by joint.
The dip and the hang
Below the flood line, the piece goes in the zinc kettle; above it, primer and two-pack or powder. Anchors torqued to spec, guards push-tested, folder handed over swept and squared.
Six ladders off Pier 6 and a bollard row on the North Wall, two seasons of ice ago. The zinc still reads new, the load sheet satisfied the assessor in one reading, and the crew timed the whole job to tides I did not know the river had.
The elevator gate had sagged since before I hired on. Slaghill re-set the posts, rewelded the diagonal the original crew skipped, and hung it on bearings rated for another thirty years of grain dust. One finger closes it now.
They talked me out of the primer-only quote for the catwalk — thirty extra dollars a metre and the difference is the rail above Slag Quay still looking factory after four winters. That is the cheapest advice I have ever been given.
Free measures across the Bend · (555) 016-9038 · yard@slaghillmetal.example
Send the span, or the sag
Lengths if you have them, photographs if you do not — a boot in frame for scale is a house speciality. Repairs usually get the rig out inside the week; dock work gets booked to the next honest tide. yard@slaghillmetal.example