Wrought Iron chair

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I need advice on making a wrought iron chair (or lookalike) as per the attached photo. I have both a an ARC and Acetyline welder.Do I use mild steel and then paint it to look like wrought ironDo I simply braze it together with an Acetyline torchWhat paint do I use to make it loom like wrought iron (sort of a rusty colour)Have perused the web with no success. Why is information on this aspect of welding so scarce?? Attached Images
Reply:Most 'wrought iron' work is actual mild steel, these days.  To make that chair, you'd need a scroll bender, or a bender with a scroll attachment.  You would want to weld all the joints with your stick welder.  The surface of wrought iron is smooth.  Do you mean a rusty finish, or just a surface that resembles something that was heated up and hammered into shape?  I made a wrought-iron-style fence for my yard, and wanted a more rustic finish for it.  But that just meant I painted it by hand so the surface would have some character to it.  I suppose you could hit it with a hammer for an even more rustic look.You can get a lot of the decorative pieces for a project like that from King Architectural Metals.  http://www.kingmetals.com/Jack OlsenMy garage website
Reply:Thanks for your reply. Would Acetylene not be easier. The pipe would be really thin. Even with the tables I make it is easy to burn holes in the square tubing (probably indicative of my abilities as a welder!!). Cant wait to get started with all the Easter holidays coming up
Reply:Wrought iron was originally used for ornamental work among other things, and was easy to bend and forge, but not suited to arc welding. Hot rolled mild steel is now used in its place, and can be readily welded by all of the available processes. There are a number of paint finishes available that used to require more than one application, but are now available straight out of the can. Any paint wholesaler should be able to supply you with something tthat will give you a mottled, hammertone, antique finish, etc. in a number of colors
Reply:Ehh, I wouldn't say the scroll bender is an absolute neccessity. The great thing about ornamental work is that pretty much anything can be accomplished with even the most basic of tools and home-made fixtures.It just takes more time and some sweat equity.To make those gentle scrolls, you can start by finding a piece of pipe the diameter of your inner radius, notching the end, and locking it down in a vice. Slip the end of your "iron" in the notch and wrap it around the pipe to the desired effect.Then you can cut a crescent moon shaped block of wood to insert into the scroll, and wrap some more to make the outer radius. Some trial and error is involved, but it's pretty easy and repeatable.As far as finishes go, that really is a secretive thing. Anyone can bend up some metal and whacker tacker it together. It's the finish that separates a $500 piece from a $100 piece.But Rustoleum has some good products that are easy to use for the DIYer. I think they even have a wrinkle or hammered look in a rattle can that you over coat with black enamel for a durable finish.
Reply:Just about any process, stick, mig, tig, FC, O/A, brazing etc will assemble something like this. You could even forge weld or hot rivit this if you were really skilled at it. (be a real pain though) Depends on what you have and are good with. A bender and a scroll jig would be helpful, but it's possible to do most of the bends I see there by hand with a hand made bending fork or jig and the end of the scroll with some heat (O/A or forge) and an anvil or heavy piece of steel. My 1st choice would be mig since it's clean and fast. 2nd would be tig (because I have one), 3rd a toss up between O/A brazing and stick (neither of which I do regularly) I'd be neater with the brazing. Be kind of neat to mortice and tennon the whole thing and hot rivit it with the O/A torch, but I don't have that much patience.One key to getting repetitive bent parts is either a jig, or a full size template you can set each piece on as you bend it and tweek from there. Thats were tools like a bender and scroll jig will be helpfull. If set up properly almost anyone can turn out parts that are very close to each other with minimal adjusting. For one chair it's not necessary, but if you want to do 10 you'll find them helpful. The bender itself can be it's own project. There have been dozens posted here, both the store bought ones you can copy or home built ones.I've done any number of "iron" furniture (mostly tables) using steel and the cast parts similar to those shown above. They make a very nice look and make it relatively simple to do so..No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan
Reply:The reason there is no information on the web to speak of is that the web did not exist at that time, and most of the people that did do that kind of work have passed away.I have repaired wrought iron fences and there is no welding on those. All of the connections were made with small set screws believe it or not. Welding was not going on until about 1930.No welding on the original Golden Gate bridge (all rivets) and all of the steel ships were riveted.The wrought iron fences start to fail when all of the little set screws holding it together get rusted and break due to the corrosion. What I have done is to weld the parts back together very carefully to hide the welds. Make the welds where they will not show. They pick up the light, so TIG welding is best, (minimal weld) and then they almost disappear when painted.Do not use MIG,it has a high build up of metal deposit.I would not braze because it will show, unless done absolutely perfectly. No excess.Last edited by Donald Branscom; 04-10-2011 at 01:59 PM.AWS certified welding inspectorAWS certified welder
Reply:I actually want to make 9 chairs for the attached table (made with stick welder). A cheap roller seems like a good idea. As mentioned stick welding thin pipes is a struggle unless anybody has other ideas. Will start looking out for MIG welder but will try with acetyline as a start. Attached Images
Reply:Have you seen the chair you're duplicating in person?  I'd be surprised if most of it isn't solid stock -- maybe 3/8" round or thereabouts.  Thin-walled tubing for those legs seems like a recipe for trouble.Bending by hand is certainly possible.  But if it's the first bending you're going to do, it's not going to be a simple matter to get 18 identical versions of each piece you bend.  A cheap Harbor Freight bender might be the sensible way to go.  I'm pretty sure they make a scroll attachment too.The table you made is nice, but it's about a ten-times simpler job than the curves you're going to have to get right for the chairs.  Do you have the chance to buy or borrow a single chair to duplicate?  I know it looks pretty simple in the picture, but having an actual model to A-B what you come up with, piece by piece, will make your production move a lot quicker.Last edited by Jack Olsen; 04-10-2011 at 02:36 PM.Jack OlsenMy garage website
Reply:The original Poster keeps saying "thin pipes".Thin tubing NOT pipes. (drives me crazy)mbat1 please learn the difference between tubing .pipe and rod.Any way Jack Olsen is right. Almost all wrought iron is sold bars or rods NOT tubes.Last edited by Donald Branscom; 04-10-2011 at 04:55 PM.AWS certified welding inspectorAWS certified welder
Reply:If it would be me doing this chair I'd use 1/2 " or 3/8" sch- 40 pipefor the round part on the back rest and the seat parts.I'd use hot rolled round for the curved round part of the handrest and welded to a sch-40 for the straighter part of the hand rest. and flat bar and square square tubing light wall .063 for the back rest.And it would be easy to weld all this with oxy/ace.I made myself a little stool that way "" no bending required LOL" in about one hour using oxy/ace welding with RG45 and a number 2 welding tip at 2/4 psi Oxy and 2/4 psi acetylene.worked like a charm.
Reply:3/8 " solid hotrolled round bar and 1" x 10ga steel flat stock..no bender required, bending fork in a vise...rustoleum flat black rattlecan...heat  and beat the end of the scroll to get the little flat at the end beefore you bend the scroll...braze....
Reply:Rustoleum makes a "textured" finish that is a close match to current production "wrought iron" patio furniture.That )( on the bottom may be 3/8" round bar, but the rest is 1/2" or more.  1/2" is still relatively easy to bend with just your hands.  5/8" gets more difficult.
Reply:I actually bought the chair in the picture to use as a template and paid nearly $200 for it. As mentioned I wanted to make 10+4 more, I notice the TUBING (Thanks Donald!) is paper thin (probably 1.5mm).  Im starting to get the feeling that these are production made and putting something like this together is not that straight forward. Though it would make it heavy its propbably easier to use something a lot more solid. I was onder the impression the tubinng would bend reasonably easily and I could use a simple acetyline weld to put it together. Maybe I will try make one this W/E and let you know what happens. Does anybody have a website where I could look at that could give me other ideas. I appreciate all the good comments
Reply:It's much easier to bend solid bar stock than tubing, in those sizes.  Kinking is a tube (and pipe) issue.It was smart to buy the one chair as a template; it'll make it a lot easier to get your components correct.  You'll be way ahead dollars-wise if you make 10 more.  And making 10 will be about as simple as making one would be.  You can make fixtures for each piece out of wood -- realize some of the economies of scale.Here's a good page on low-budget manual bending tricks.  http://metalgeek.com/archives/2005/05/01/000047.phpYour local steel supplier should be able to sell you 20'-24' lengths of 3/8" or 1/2" stock.  It doesn't look like any of the pieces in the chair are custom-shaped.  And the caps and other decorative pieces are sold by King.Jack OlsenMy garage website
Reply:I agree with jack on his idea to make this chair with solid round stock.AWS certified welding inspectorAWS certified welder
Reply:I think I recognise the leg brace detail.Any chance of a close up?Looks like a Corso De Fiori chair.If it is it will be solid, and Oxyed , heat bent with some Arc , then ground, painted with a high Zinc content paint.BrettA good guess is better than a bad measurement