Certified welding, lifting gear & structural steel · Duncairn & the ghyll valleys · Est. 2001
Everything we weld gets tested past the number it will carry.
Ninefold builds lifting beams, jibs, guards and structural frames for the valleys’ quarries and builders — AWS D1.1 procedures joint by joint, every below-hook device proof-loaded to twice its working load on our own gantry, and the test sheet in the folder before the paint is dry.
The ghyll valleys, 2025 — 2026
Steel we have signed
Six fabrications from the last year. Everything below the hook went over the proof pad before it went to site — the certificate names the load, the date and the welder.
Services & rates
The card
The same card the quarries’ works engineers price from. Lifting gear is quoted from the load case, not the length of steel — a beam that will see six tonnes is a different drawing from one that will see six hundred kilos, and the folder says which one you own.
Lifting beams & spreaders — built & certifiedfrom $1,400
Designed to your load case; proof-loaded to 2× WLL on our pad
Jibs, davits & below-hook devicesfrom $980
Rated, tagged, certificate in the folder
Guards & railings — load-calculated$96–142 / linear ft
200-lb push sheet in the folder; kettle for the yards
Structural steel — fabricated & set$118 / hr + steel
AWS D1.1 procedures, weld log joint by joint
Recertification of existing gearfrom $240 / device
Inspection, magnetic-particle test, proof reload
Site welding & repair$95 / hr
The ghyll valleys, usually same-week
How it runs
From load case to proof load
Five movements, and the last one is the whole point: the device meets its proof load on our pad, under a gauge, before it meets your load on site.
The load case
What it lifts, how often, from where — the duty cycle decides the section before any steel is cut, and it is written on the first page of the folder.
The drawing and the stamps
A rated drawing with the proof-load figure on its face, reviewed and stamped where the duty asks for it, and the fixed price under it.
The floor
Plasma-nested parts, frames squared on jigs, MIG at 24 volts where the load lives and TIG at 105–120 amps where the eye lands — every joint logged.
The pad
Loaded to twice its working load with a gauge on the beam, held, released, measured. The certificate names the load, the date and the welder.
The yard and the file
Delivered with the tag, the folder and the recert date already in your calendar — and the first re-test is ours.
Duncairn
The yard under the viaduct
Two structural bays, a plasma table, a ten-ton gantry and a proof pad of our own — the pad is the yard’s spine, and most Mondays something is on it taking twice what it will ever be asked for. Four certified welders, a works engineer who reads duty cycles for pleasure, and a rule the quarries have come to book around: nothing leaves uncertified, and nothing leaves late.
Proof-loaded, then certified
Every below-hook device Ninefold builds is loaded to twice its working load on our pad with a gauge on the beam, and the certificate names the load, the date and the welder. Recertified on the same pad at your interval — and the first re-test is ours to pay.
Straight answers
The five the works engineers ask
Asked at quarries, on sites and over the yard gate — and answered in loads, amps and microns, because those are the units the valleys trade in. The yard line at the bottom runs six to five.
What does a proof load actually prove?
That the device has carried twice its working load and come back telling the truth. We load to 2× WLL on our pad, hold it, release it, and measure for any permanent set — elastic means sound, and the gauge and the calipers both go in the certificate. It is the rigging code’s arithmetic turned into a Monday morning.
What amp settings are in the log?
The honest ones, beside the welder’s initials: TIG on 1/8-inch wall at 105–120 amps behind a 3/32 lanthanated tungsten with 308 filler; structural laps MIG at 24 volts; sheet at 60 amps. A number written down is the only one anybody can check in thirty years — which is the whole reason the log exists.
Galvanize or powder — for quarry gear?
The yards get the kettle, full stop: hot-dip galvanizing, eighty-five to a hundred microns of fused zinc, because slurry and grit strip paint for sport. Powder over the zinc where a colour helps the banks tell their beams apart. Zinc-rich primer, seventy-five microns, stays indoors on the dry structural work where it belongs.
Can you recertify the beam we already own?
Gladly — it is a third of the card. Inspection, magnetic-particle test over every weld, a proof reload to twice the tag on our pad, and either a fresh certificate with a new test date or a written verdict that the beam is done. The quarries send us thirty at a time; recert day has its own weather.
How fast?
Repairs inside the week, valleys-wide. New lifting gear runs three weeks through load case, floor and pad; recertification batches book a Monday and are usually back on the hook by Friday. Structural steel follows your build schedule, not ours.
Our insurers asked who had certified the slate quay beam and I sent them the folder instead of a phone number. They replied in four words: “file closed, no action”. Six tonnes of slate has crossed that beam every working day since.
Recert day: thirty beams on their pad, one gauge, one works engineer reading the certificates aloud like a register. Two failed — both theirs to replace, both replaced inside the fortnight, both failures caught on their pad instead of over our crush plant.
The jib for the wharf store was drawn from a load case I half-knew how to describe, proofed at two tonnes for a one-tonne tag, and installed in an afternoon. The certificate is framed by the office door — the insurers see it before I do.
Anyone can weld a beam. We weld the number on the tag — and then we prove it, twice.
Certified packages inside five business days · (555) 015-8802 · rig@ninefoldsteel.example
Bring the load case, or just the load
A duty cycle described in plain words is enough to start the drawing; a stamped load case gets a fixed price inside five business days. Either way the pad comes last and the folder comes with it. rig@ninefoldsteel.example