restoration project antique gate

[spixycat]

Hi All,

 

I am restoring a gate in quite a different way (I think)  using

 

* Cebora 1965 TIG welder 5-200Amps DC wìth pedal

* Bosch angle grinder (new) 

* Bosch second hand Drill 

 

My working are is my back garden when it is nice wheather and otherwise a tiny shed with a  1x2.5 meter working area and a workmate Black and Decker and a so called "third hand" (have to look it up, nice quality meant for soldering PCB but not built for large forces)

 

My object is a sober designed gate but with beautiful features, very well made. It had been modified in the past: all rivets that hold the 3 main horizontal bars which split into (vèry smart design) Y to make a direct connection to the (don't know the exact name) the "style" around which the porch rotates: I am talking about the most important parts of the gate. So the rivets were replaced by nuts and bolts that were in a bad shape. The lowest connection was visably quite in a bad shape: there was a lot of rust formed. The middle  and top connection were in a decent shape

 

Objective

My objective is to restore this gate back to, as far as possible, it's former glory. Based on the information and measurements taken from similar parts to understand what has been affected or rusted away over the may be last 100 years: I have no idea yet from which period this gate is. 

 

Least intrusive

May sound strange but the objective is to change the minimum amount, or ideally invisable preservation of this gate. Up till now the only focus has been the restoration of those 3 Y shaped connections

 

Learning project

This is my first project on a gate like this, the main goal is to gain as much as possible experience, understanding of both antique wrought iron and TIG welding

 

What have I done so far?

the removal of the nuts and bolts was a LOT of work, I had to cut the Y connections in order to be able to seperate them from the rotation style. Last couple of weeks I have been focussing on getting the Y connection parts back in shape: 1 is finished, 2th is almost finished and the third on is 60% done: the last one is the most affected one: some area's are 4 to 5 mm lower compared to the other 2 Y connections

 

It has been a long day today but I can't wait posting my project to get some feedback. Till now nobody with "real" knowledge has made any comments. 

 

Thanks in advance

 

Photo's

 

The original gate part of the porch as it arrived:

 

The "Y connection" original with the nuts and bolds:

 

The detached Y conn 

 

 

all 3 connections bottom part which was in worst case partly TIG welded

 

just after TIG welding the cuts made by the angle grinder

 

First one almost read: 12mm rods will become the rivets, upper one also just TIG welded

 

 

[spixycat]

Hi All,

 

I have been working on a Gate for a while (see critique My work) and have vèry limited space, minimum amount of tools nor forge no anvil but I use a TIG welder + grinder and a tiny space. 

 

My objective is to bring this I think 100+ years old gate back to it's former glory, which means bringing back proper rivets with a 12 mm diameter shafts (6 of those big buggers..) which where badly rusted nuts and bolds that were almost impossible to remove (took a long time to figure out a way)

 

I am sure that my post will raise some eyebrows but my points is that using these very modern technique allows me to restore and add material there where it has been rusted away for a very long time.

 

I am not talking (yet)  about building new things using this technique, no only "preservation" which means that nothings gets replaced: every part is brought back to it former glory using only TIG welding which allows a complete control of the material added

 

Question: who else is using this approach? Like to share idea's etc etc

 

Regards from the Netherlands

 

André

[ThomasPowers]

Well if it's real wrought iron you won't have complete control of the materials as wrought iron is a composite material composed of iron with a large number of ferrous silicate spicles in it---can be several hundred thousands per sq inch of cross section.  If melted you lose that.

[jmccustomknives]

Well if it's real wrought iron you won't have complete control of the materials as wrought iron is a composite material composed of iron with a large number of ferrous silicate spicles in it---can be several hundred thousands per sq inch of cross section.  If melted you lose that.

Basically what he's saying is that what you use for filler will rust at a different rate and look different from the base material.  If the owner is planning on painting then it isn't an issue.  But tig welding wrought to a purist is like sunlight to a vampire.  I personally would find another way, but then when it comes to wrought I'm a bit of a purist too. B)

Best thing to do is figure out if it is wrought.  If what you have is mild steel then it's fair game for welding.  At it's age it could be either.

[DSW]

If you want to restore it with rivets like it was done originally, you will most likely want a bigger heat source than your tig machine. It's not hard to build a simple solid fuel forge to heat your rivets and do it the way it was done originally. This is covered very well here in the solid fuel forge area.

 

Option two is to get an oxy fuel torch and heat the rivets that way. I've found oxy fuel is a bit easier to work with if you don't have the experience doing hot rivets the "old" way. You will have just one heat to do it over a forge most likely so you kind of need to have that skill down pretty good. With a torch you can stop and reheat only the rivet head to continue shaping. You can probably borrow or rent one if need be vs buying if you don't feel you have enough need a torch full time.

[SoCal Dave]

I feel you can use whatever tools or equipment you have at hand and whatever you want to use to restore it's functional use.  When you have other tools and equipment, I am sure you will use them also.  Unless, the owner wants it restored using only traditional methods, I would use the tig and try to hide to the best of your abilities, the tig welds.  Good luck

[cvmikeray]

Find old wrought to use as filler material. You can also do this fill with a gas setup.

[John McPherson]

Off the cuff, looking at the rust patterns of the metal, the design of the gate members, and the bolts being hex pattern instead of square, I would estimate that mass produced gate being only 20 to 50 years old. Certainly nowhere near 100 YO wrought iron, and certainly not high end manufacture.

 

Use any convenient method to repair it. There is no historical value to conserve.

[ThomasPowers]

note that using wrought iron as filler does NOT get you wrought iron as it loses it's character once molten

 

 

Note that a shovel full of dirt will leave a hole that can be used as a forge with charcoal, a piece of black pipe and a blowdryer.  Perfectly OK for heating rivets for hot setting them

[Timothy Miller]

Tig welding is not the proper process for welding wrought iron.  A gas torch is the preferred method and produces better welds stronger welds if you must weld it.  The idea that you can just cut and weld Wrought Iron like steel is incorrect.  Some do use bronze as filler because it does not damage the wrought iron and you can tell where new material was added on important historic works.  When you weld those split sections back on there will be a serious weakness in the structure of the gate.  If you had a torch you could heat up the rivets and easily remove them.  This is a project for someone with some forging skills to undertake not a job for a "welder".  Sadly much historic ironwork is treated in this way.

[spixycat]

Hi All, 

 

Many thanks for all the reply, really helps me to get an idea where I am at.

 

Here some feedback and or questions per comment given: 

 

Timothy Miller:

-------------------

what is the difference between TIG welding and using gas torch? I my limited experience I would say that these are almost identical: they will both create a puddle to add a filler material. I really do like the idea of using filler bronze so that the places of repair can be identified which is great I think: I was considering to leave this added in area's "new" (if that would be possible) with a ie clear varnish to clearly see the repaired area's: bronze will give that same idea, I like it very much. And don't get me wrong: I dò want to keep the remainding old identity.

 

Can you explain to me why these cut and weld are incorrect which means I think and correct me when I am wrong "weaker" that the wrought iron? Will bronze create stronger welds?

 

Can you elaborate a bit more why TIG welding will damage the wrought iron and using bronze and gas won't? I want to understand this because it is a serious flaw in my assumption that I can TIG weld iron or in this case wrought iron, If I understand you correctly TIG welding using a filler is incompatable with wrought iron.  

 

ThomasPowers

---------------------

That is true resuing wrough iron as a filler wire.  The new 12 mm diameter rivets willl be made from off the selve solid bars, not from wrough iron, so  I think I am safe to use in this particular case my TIG torch to make the river red/white hot. But please correct me when I am wrong. Note that the wrough iron wont (I guess) melt?

 

John McPherson

-----------------------

I believe that these "the bolts being hex pattern" have replaced all the original rivets, that is what I think. But you may have a point. I will check the gate to see which other parts have been rivited. If it is a younger then I would also expect some welds and that is not the case. Also the colors are a bit different than what I would expect: the base color on the bare metal is a salmon light pink/red color and the green is also quite a lite green color. Over the whole gate a cheaper black coat has been applied that crumbles easily off because it is cracked. If it is old which I hope is the case, than I want to keep that original paint so no sandblasting etc etc which seems today's way of restoration of an old antique piece: sandblast and powdercoat it.. brrrrr I will get back on this with more photo's. The Y shape pieces as can be seen on the photo would be I guess quite different when the gate is much younger.

 

cvmikeray

-------------

refers back to my first question : what are the differences between gas and TIG welding which is my basic question

 

SoCal Dave

----------------

in this case I am the owner :) An yes I do want to hide as much as possible the affected area's

 

 

DSW

-------

I have riveted deom new stock 8mm bars rivets using the TIG tourch and it worked just fine: no problem at all. Mind you I use a pedal to adjust the amparage`of the TIG torch which works really wel

 

jmccustomknives

-----------------------

I would like to be a purits too if I could but at this time that is not an option, so the only thing is try to be "pure" as possible. That means in my case that the strenght sould not be affected or compromised when there tension like the cut of pieces that I cut off just were there was a vertical bar. Might have been the biggest mistake that ruïnd the gate completely, that I don't know yet. But this is best I can with my very limited resource and also very limited space

 

ThomasPowers

---------------------

At what temperature will these "ferrous silicate" melt?  And these will not melt when using a tourch? Basicly the first question covers this aspect also.

 

 

May thanks for the very usefull comments, it helps me to better understand wham I am doing. Not that this an axuse but I am doing this stuff since one year by the way. Previously I had no welding experience at all. This might explain better the context in which I have been asking these questions

 

Bye!

[Quarry Dog]

  If it is wrought iron, there may be inconsistencies in carbon content, meaning undissolved carbon pockets in the grain.  There's no telling if you're melting an isolated pocket of carbon into the base metal, effectively turning the weld nugget into pig iron, which is basically brittle cast iron.  Also, their's no telling what percentage of silicon the weld nugget is.  Of course if it's puddle iron, then you may end up with something like medium carbon alloy steel, as most of the impurities were "boiled" out, although it will still rust faster after welding.

    If this gate is wrought iron, depending on how refined it is you may not be able to fix it, since you cut off the Ys.  If you had cut the bolts off with a torch, and punched the remnants through the holes, you may have been able to build up the ends of the Ys and not had to worry about what the resulting weld nugget was composed of.

  One last concern is that the grain of the metal, meaning the fibrous nature of the silicon impurities, are what gives wrought iron the corrosion resistance that it is known for.  This silicon will be melted and uniformly mixed into whatever welds you do, which will have to be full penetration at the Ys.  Because of this, your welds will rust away before the rest of the gate.

  As to bronze brazing.  I don't know if that will hold butt joints that basically have to support the entire weight of the gate.

  So you have 3 options to try:

    1)Weld it.  Your welds will be brittle, and you may have long term corrosion issues.

    2)Braze it.  Expect joints to fail at the cut off for the Ys. Expect a little bit of surface corrosion on the bronze.

    3)Test the metal and hope to goodness it's mild steel.  If it is, make sure your welds are good and you will be just fine.

 

  As for the rivets, you could also cold rivet them in place.  You may want to heat them up once in the middle of the riveting process, and sand them a little when done.

[spixycat]

Hi Jerome Werth,

 

Very good information, I almost understand all aspects.

 

So, it sounds like cutting off these Y's was a very bad idea because I didn't know what I was dealing with and the implications when welding them back. Thank God this is not a commision gate but a learning-project-gate: if it works out great because it can be a functional gate or otherwise it might become a decrotive piece in a nice garden or something: this sounds sad but that was the risk of this learning project. 

 

And I do want to deliver a gate that can withstand professional critisizm or though question like these above.  And lets face it: I do learn a lot by goofing up the Y's by cutting them off in a few minutes.

 

A possible option might be is to forge weld the Y's back but that may be a LOT of work....

 

Last question: what is considerd to be mild steel? How can I determine that it is mild steel? 

 

Last but not least: Up till now the welding is going just fine: you can see right away if there is a problem of some sort: you see ie rust, craters impurities, contemenation etc etc etc : with these larger pieces you can also see color changes of the hot metal which I think is a sign that it is a faulty weld.

 

Many thanks for your input,

 

André 

[DSW]

Best way to determine what material it is short of metallurgical testing would probably be to do a spark test on it. I pulled up two quick threads on it from here but there are a bunch of other ones both here and elsewhere on the subject you can look at.

 

 

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http://www.iforgeiron.com/page/index.html/_/blueprints/original-series/bp0020-spark-testing-r253

[spixycat]

Thanks DSW: indeed sparktest also gives essential information.

 

I have seen the following video of Jody from weldingtipsandtricks.com that is very similar, however he also uses a normal file to compare metals against known metals.

 

[ThomasPowers]

OK I think I see a background issue here that is largely semantic.  To many if not most of us "restoration" has a very strict meaning and connotes that you are trying to put it back as close to the original state as possible.  Restoration often costs several times as much as repair or "getting it back into using shape".  It often involes research *before* starting  into materials and processes used on the original.  There is also a "first do no harm" aspect when working with a historic piece.

 

Restoration often includes stupid or silly things done by our predecessors---(I've heard tell of a historic house that was restored down to matching the original LEAD PAINT IN THE NURSEY!)  When something cannot be restored and has to be replaced then it is often marked in some way to allow people to know what was original and what is a replacement.

 

So your posts bother us who have done "restorations" or "replications".  Two analogies:  "I'm restoring an old painting, I don't know the difference between oil paint and tempra but have already started  cleaning it"    and  "I'm restoring a Model T car and have cut the engine in half to make it easier to remove, how do I put it back together so it's like the original?"

 

Ferrous silicates melt in the high orange to yellow temps---which is where real wrought iron likes/must be worked---often above burning temperatures of modern steel.

 

Wrought iron forge welds much better than modern alloys IMNSHO and they forge welded many things we would strongly avoid trying in modern steel.  Forge welding is a solid phase process without liquidification and so while the weld shows up metallurgically the nature of the pieces stays the same.

 

Real wrought iron was fusion welded both with arc and torch but it leaves the weld zone as being "not wrought iron" and more filler is required to replace the silicates that have come out of the metal where it was melted.   Think of wrought iron as being like fiberglass (another composite material):  if you take two pieces of fiberglass and butt them together with a lot of resin the joint is not fiberglass but just resin between two pieces of fiberglass.  Of course for the first 2-3 thousand years forge welding was the only welding of iron!

 

Yes you can heat rivets with a tig torch just like you can haul coal in a mercedes sports car.  There are ways that are easier and cheaper and involve less wear and tear on expensive equipment; but you can do it---just like you can blow a forge with a compressor and put wear and "hours" on an expensive to buy and maintain tool vs getting a cheap fan and using it.

 

Most of this is not an issue if you are just working to put the gate back in use and NOT doing a "Restoration"

 

(Also note that real wrought iron rivets will be almost impossible to source and should be at *least* triply refined wrought iron and set at a yellow to white heat.)

[spixycat]

Dear ThomasPowers

 

Mea culpa.

 

I want to offer my apologies to anybody that has been offended by me using the phrase that "I restore":  that is totally inappropriate because a I am just a beginner.

 

 

I really appriciate comments like these/this. 

[ThomasPowers]

The net is the home of the sweeping statement and niggling quibble; learning the jargon of a particular craft is part of the boot strapping process and not helped by the fact that it changes with location even within a country.

 

Glad to have you stick around and share with us your trials and tribulations getting that gate back in working order even if it's *not* a restoration

[spixycat]

So Thomas,

 

Any suggestions on how to approach this repair? 

 

FYI: I have been filing and polishing a small area of one of the Y sections on the end that I definitly should not have cut appart. The photo shows the 1 out of  3 and this is the top one that will take only stretching force (no compression) and a 1/3 of the gate's weight as shear force. 

 

I polished it with 300, 400 and 800 grid water based sand paper for quite a while: used a large magnifier glass and even a 500Watt lamp (smaller eye opening so more picture depth) and I can't see anything that would suggest traces of silicium (fibers) or any thing other contamination : the iron looks just perfect: the only marks I can see were caused by the grinder which can be ignored. 

 

I think I need a good microscope, in order to see the structure of the iron. 

 

 

First attempt 800 grid with grinding traces:

[DSW]

While it may not be directly useful to you, one way to tell wrought iron vs cast iron or steel is thru destructive testing. If you cut 1/2 way thru a bar of wrought and bend it back away from the cut it tends to "tear" like wood does and shows the fibers easily many times. Cast just breaks vs bends and steel usually bends with no tearing. A few quick picts I dug up that shows the "grain" in wrought iron.

[Frosty]

Spixycat: two suggestions to start. Put your general location in the header, there's probably an IFI member within visiting distance. Second STOP messing with the gate till you've learned at least a little about metal working.

 

For goodness sake stop cutting the ears on the "Y" section, there's absolutely NO reason to do so, it's just damaging the piece.

 

Tig welders can indeed be used to heat steel but the arc is WAY hotter than necessary and WILL alter the contact zone metallurgically. A torch is a gentler heat, you can certainly melt it but you have to try or be really inept.

 

Brazing does far less to alter wrought than fusion welding simply because it's a hard solder and doesn't melt the base metal. Calling brazing welding is another misnomer and a pretty clear sign of your need of a couple classes.

 

Without some basic knowledge you will not have much if any success by asking questions. You don't have enough knowledge to ask good questions or understand the answers let alone sift out the answers from folk with little more knowledge than you have now. Seriously, by the looks of it you've turned a simple maintenance job of replacing old bolts into a job of repairing serious damage. From just taking a sharp cold chisel to bolt heads one at a time, driving the old bolt out and replacing it with a new one. Now you have to either weld, braze or replace the pickets.

 

I'm not trying to make you feel bad, dumb or whatever, I'm just trying to put you on a path to success. this isn't some philosophical quest for understanding, it's a skill to learn. Come ON, a microscope?! Would you send soils samples to the lab before you filled a pot hole in a path? Really, that gate is probably not 50 years old, certainly not a century. This is a home fixit project. If you want to dress it up have it sandblasted and powder coated a nice semi gloss black, it'll look terrific.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

[LastRonin]

spixycat, if it is possible to 'adjust' the gate opening... An idea MIGHT be to simply use your angle grinder to cut slits into the ends of the bars where you cut the y's off and borrow/rent a torch to heat them up enough to make new y's. You'd lose a bit of length on the gate, but retain the structural strength no matter what material it is made from.

[John McPherson]

Now that you have polished a section, an acid etch will show any grain structure. Lemon juice or vinegar will do. Soak it for 15 minutes, then scrub with fine steel wool. Repeat as needed.

 

Welcome aboard! You are on a voyage of discovery here, and we will help if we can.