Railhead Help

[GrumpyOne]

Please forgive my ignorance but I have looked on Google and can't find a definitive answer when I really should have asked here first.

My wife would like our fence topped off with spikey railheads and I thought that welding the railheads to a length of flat bar then bolting the flatbat to the existing fence would be an acceptable solution.
The railhead is 12mm round and the flat bar is 50mm X 2.5mm, I will be using a Thermal Arc 181i Fabricator.
What I was hoping someone would be able to tell me, is wrought iron weldable, if so will my machine weld 12mm wrought iron to 2.5mm mild steel, is there a special technique used for welding wrought iron and is there anything I should watch out for?

Any help as usual is most appreciated.

 

[dan.taylor.1]

Yes it'll weld fine, and yes id imagine it'll weld fine with your machine, maybe buy an extra so you can try settings first?

 

[Wendelspanswick]

Although the are called wrought iron railheads in reality they are just forged mild steel.
The genuine wrought iron or pig iron is uncommon nowadays, they were still producing it on a small scale in Iron Bridge about 10-15 years ago, don't know if they still are.
I have a few odd lengths left, mainly reclaimed park fencing and hay wagon axles. I used to use it on house preservation jobs if they could afford to pay for it!

 

[Kent]

The flat bar is only 2.5mm thick flat bar that sheet is it a typo ? your going to weld 12mm thick railheads to it? That's going to distort all over the shop and your fence top will look like a fairground ride.
Just a word of caution here if your putting on spikey railheads for security there are laws governing how and were it can be done

 

[GrumpyOne]

The flat bar is only 2.5mm thick flat bar that sheet is it a typo ? your going to weld 12mm thick railheads to it? That's going to distort all over the shop and your fence top will look like a fairground ride.
Just a word of caution here if your putting on spikey railheads for security there are laws governing how and were it can be done

I could use a box section if it helped me or would I just need to beef up the flat bar, what metal would you recommend I use knowing what type of machine I have? Asking about rules and regs was going to be my next question

 

[razordog]

The flat bar is only 2.5mm thick flat bar that sheet is it a typo ? your going to weld 12mm thick railheads to it? That's going to distort all over the shop and your fence top will look like a fairground ride.
Just a word of caution here if your putting on spikey railheads for security there are laws governing how and were it can be done

As previous poster said the castings need a stout weld so attaching them to 2.5mm flat wont work it needs to be at least 6mm or 8mm flat and at least 150 amps.

 

[thinfourth]

Want some free railheads to play with?

I have a drawer full of them

 

[GrumpyOne]

Want some free railheads to play with?

I have a drawer full of them

I would love some to practice with, im only a hobby welder so need all the practice I can get, I should be alright when I'm finished her fence though, I'm only doing part of it but it is 62 foot long.

 

[thinfourth]

PM sent

You can have as much scrap steel as you want

Within reason

 

[GrumpyOne]

PM sent

You can have as much scrap steel as you want

Within reason

Do you know any good places to hire a low loader?

 

[Kent]

I could use a box section if it helped me or would I just need to beef up the flat bar, what metal would you recommend I use knowing what type of machine I have? Asking about rules and regs was going to be my next question

I don't exactly get what your faced with without a drawing etc. But welding railheads onto box section and it will distort less as the sides and base of the box wont be getting hot. Lets say that flat bar was 40x8 without any bracing bars under it will still bend, curving up at each weld not as much as 2.5 but it will still move

 

[GrumpyOne]

Hi Kent, my wife is in Baku on business this week but I was telling her what everyone said last night and she asked if it might be easier to make a whole new fence, she is home on Friday and I'll get her to tell me exactly what she wants and hopefully all will become clear, I doubt it myself though

 

[Kent]

Heck its always better to make new than adapt if you can. Baku? Now that's not in Scotland is it

 

[GrumpyOne]

Heck its always better to make new than adapt if you can. Baku? Now that's not in Scotland is it

She often goes there, but she was busy telling us on Sunday that the weather is just starting to warm up and it should be about 21 degrees, I asked her when was the last time Aberdeen had seen 21 degrees even in the hight of summer?

 

[norlander]

What does she want the fence to achieve? if part of its job is to discourage intruders, its best to use a panel fence topped with trellis lightly mounted on top of each panel. Burglars hate it, so if you can top your existing fence off with trellis attached to brackets you weld on, that might be an option, just don't mount the trellis too solid, it needs to snap off/collapse if Mr Scumbag tries to scale the fence.

You can have as much scrap steel as you want

Oil industry up that way missing a few offcuts then

 

[Kent]

Look carefully at what you can do legally, having emergency services or police injure themselves through your non compliance or a kid getting his ball etc. could land you in it deep. Mostly anyone who does wrought iron gates and railings gets asked for sharper spikes quite a bit but it just plain isn't worth it.
All sorts of stuff like minimum heights, notices etc. Hard to scale is better than dangerous to scale in these regards! A nice thick blackthorn hedge is of course just fine placed just behind those new hard to scale railings

 

[norlander]

Look carefully at what you can do legally, having emergency services or police injure themselves through your non compliance or a kid getting his ball etc. could land you in it deep. Mostly anyone who does wrought iron gates and railings gets asked for sharper spikes quite a bit but it just plain isn't worth it.
All sorts of stuff like minimum heights, notices etc. Hard to scale is better than dangerous to scale in these regards! A nice thick blackthorn hedge is of course just fine placed just behind those new hard to scale railings

He is in Scotland, Scottish law is not such an Ass as english law, which is why I did not bother to point out that if an intruder takes a fall when scaling trellis, he/she fell through your fence-simple, if they hurt themselves on deliberately placed pointy things, pitfalls, mantraps and engines set in place, under english law you can be done as you say.
I had cold frames against the inside of my fence, a visitor who chose not to enter by the back gate, fell into one when he fell through the trellis on top of the wall, he didn't hang around for me to apologise and apply some plasters on his cuts.
I made a mental note to move the frames, but never got round to it

Blackthorn hedge would indeed be a nice suprise for anyone dropping in.....................;

 

[GrumpyOne]

We have a small 3' wall surrounding our garden, behind the wall there were trees, unfortuneatly some of the trees have had to be cut down leaving 62' of exposed 3' wall. A couple of weeks ago my wife went out to bring in the washing and was confronted by two men, motives unknown, who had stepped over the wall and into the rear garden, my wife freaked, and the police wouldn't even attend. Long story short my wife has now changed her mind from spikey things on top of the 3' wall to a 3' fence with spikey things on top of the existing 3' wall, giving us a 6' wall / fence.
I have an idea in mind for the fence part and she returns home tomorrow to say yes or no to it, I'll try posting a drawing and you can let me know if it is feasible with my limited welding and fabrication skills.

PS, I don't want to hurt anyone, just stop them from easily entering my garden.

 

[Wendelspanswick]

You used to be able to buy pre-punched flat bar, which saves time if you haven't got access to an ironworker, or you can drill the holes with a decent pillar drill.
Weld your rail heads onto either round or square bar and then slot into the pre-punched holes on your horizontal stringers with a heavy tack on each joint leaving a couple of inches of bar sticking up from the uppermost stringer.
You can weld the rail head straight onto the horizontal stringer but I always think it looks cheap.
Make your panels either 2 or 3m long to best utilise the steel stock length with a vertical fixing pillar in between each panel.
If you use elongated holes on the end of each panel it allows for inaccuracies in mounting the fixing pillars.

To stop small boys or drunk adults getting their heads stuck in the railings make sure the gap between each rail is no bigger than 100mm.
On some of the traditional gates I used to make I used to fit 'dog bars' in the bottom half to decrease the gap to less than 50mm.

 

[norlander]

We have a small 3' wall surrounding our garden, behind the wall there were trees, unfortuneatly some of the trees have had to be cut down leaving 62' of exposed 3' wall. A couple of weeks ago my wife went out to bring in the washing and was confronted by two men, motives unknown, who had stepped over the wall and into the rear garden, my wife freaked, and the police wouldn't even attend. Long story short my wife has now changed her mind from spikey things on top of the 3' wall to a 3' fence with spikey things on top of the existing 3' wall, giving us a 6' wall / fence.
I have an idea in mind for the fence part and she returns home tomorrow to say yes or no to it, I'll try posting a drawing and you can let me know if it is feasible with my limited welding and fabrication skills.

PS, I don't want to hurt anyone, just stop them from easily entering my garden.

got the mental picture now, yes 6' would be better and give you more privacy and Mrs GrumpyOne a sense of security. Must have been quite a fright seeing two strangers on the property, glad she was ok other than the fright.