Custom Metalwork

The awkward jobs.

Burglar proofing. An interior screen. A bin enclosure. The panel that has to fit an opening somebody else built, at a size that isn't a round number, in a spot you walk past every single day.

Small in footprint, high in execution. Per square foot these take the longest of anything we make — and they're the pieces that show what the machine can really do, because they're the only ones anybody ever sees from three feet away.

A lotus, leaves and grasses cut through a steel panel set into an arched window opening
Lotus burglar-proof panel  ·  C-064

What this covers

Four kinds of small job.

All of them are the same skill as a gate, applied at a size where there is nowhere for a rough edge to hide.

  • Burglar proofing

    Security that isn't apologetic. The same cut design language as the gates, at the scale of a window, where every millimetre of the drawing is visible from a metre away — and where a lotus does the same job as a row of bars.

  • Interior screens

    Room dividers, entrance screens, glazed leaves. Inside there's no weather to design around, so the pattern can run as fine as the steel will hold and repeat across several leaves without breaking step.

  • Bin enclosures

    The least glamorous object on the property, and the one nobody thinks to design. Powder coated, with a hinged front, a slotted top and a cut panel on the face, so it reads as part of the house instead of something to be hidden behind it.

  • One-offs

    The thing that doesn't have a category. If it's steel, it's flat, and it has to fit something that already exists, it's worth asking about — those enquiries are usually the interesting ones.

Why they take longer

The smallest pieces
are the slowest.

A driveway gate is mostly seen from a moving car. It wants weight and a clear silhouette, and it forgives a great deal. A burglar-proof panel over a window is looked at from a metre away, every day, by the person who paid for it. Nothing is forgiven.

So the drawing carries far more detail than a gate of the same design would. There's more hand-finishing once the panel comes off the table. And the fit has to be exact, because the opening already exists and it was not built to a round number — an interior screen closing against a wall that isn't plumb is a fabrication problem before it's a design one.

That's the trade. These are the most involved things we make for their size. They're also the best argument for the machine: detail this fine, at this scale, is exactly what would be uneconomic to cut by hand — and we don't do that is never the answer you'll get here.

The awkward job is the one worth asking about. It's the one everybody else quotes high to avoid.

Selected work

Three that were
somebody's problem first.

None of these are standard products. Each one was drawn for an opening that already existed, at whatever size that opening happened to be.

See these in the catalog

Worth knowing

Close-up work can
carry more, not less.

Detail should suit the distance.

A driveway gate is read from the road, so it wants weight and silhouette. A burglar-proof panel, an interior screen or a pedestrian gate is seen from three feet away and can carry many times the detail. This is the one place on the property where fine work is not wasted.

It can match what you already have.

If there's a gate or a fence on the property, the burglar proofing can be drawn from the same design — the same tree, the same pattern, resolved at window scale. That consistency across a frontage is some of the work we're proudest of.

It's the same process as a gate.

Measured, drawn, approved, cut, coated, fitted — nothing about a small piece is treated as a small job. The lead times and the finish are the same.

Process & Materials

You don't need a design.

Most people arrive with a photograph of the window and a rough idea. That's genuinely enough to start, and the drawing is included in the quote rather than billed separately.

Design Your Own

Start here

Tell us what has to fit.

A photograph of the window, the door or the corner it has to live in, and a rough measurement. If it's the awkward job nobody else wanted to quote, say that too.

Prefer to message? WhatsApp 769-1035. For anything involving measurements the quote form is better — it keeps a written record of exactly what was asked for, for both of us.

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