Using traditional skills

It’s surprising but many of the basic skills needed for antique and reclamation metalwork are the same the ones we employ in coachbuilding. So methods such as lead-work, silver soldering, braze, planishing, copperwork, brasswork, welding, reconstruction and steel fabricating have all been used on the antique projects we have been involved with for the last 25 years or more.

Brass, zinc, cast, copper...

Our work on antiques has really focused around brass, copper, cast metals and wrought iron. Our clients have also brought us a fair amount of reclamation, predominately from France which we have used on varying projects over the years. Pictured (left) shows an original reconstructed French Gothic lantern in brass. See this lantern and more antique pieces in our online photo gallery.

Working with wrought

You may find regular mild steel marketed as wrought, well it’s not, wrought iron is produced in a different way and has different properties. We have used and repaired a lot of wrought when working with original French railings, balustrades, tables, benches, scroll-work and gates and have sourced it from old antique stocks and reclamation.

See more of this original bench and other antiques here.

Recycling and using reclaimed materials

Our antique clients have sourced a lot of materials and damaged originals from locations all over the UK and France in particular. We have crafted pieces such as these wall candle squonces (left) from a reclaimed wrought balustrade and gate with some rare ornate edging scroll, it taps into our creative side I suppose!

See more photos like this in our online antique photo galleries.

Charming and unique

One unusual job we did in the past was repairing a set of old damaged copper kettle drums, unfortunately we don’t have any photos.

We’ve also produced scroll work like this console leg (left), but parts of the leg had to be made with mild steel because the correct size and shape in wrought was not available. You can see more of this console here.