Finished and working, this is a custom deck railing fitted to a rustic timber-sided house. Matching sections run along the deck with welded wire mesh infill set inside dark metal frames, and the stair gets its own integrated handrail. The wooden corner posts carry pyramid caps, which gives the whole line a tidy, completed look from top to bottom.
The construction reads as a proper fabrication job. Square steel tubing was measured and laid out into a parallelogram, then the joints were welded on a perforated table. The welds were ground flat without dipping into the base metal, and a Scotch-Brite disc on a die grinder blended the corners smooth. Mounting tabs came from flat bar cut on a horizontal band saw, with steel blocks plug welded to them through a central 3/8-inch hole. Holes in the tubing were drilled on a vertical milling machine.
The mesh work stands out to me. Each wire end was welded to the perimeter frame with a MIG gun, one at a time, and a red laser beam from a PLS level was projected across the mesh. The pyramid caps were formed from triangular steel plates, tacked first and then seam welded all the way around. A digital angle gauge, C-clamps and a Miller wire feeder MIG welder were among the tools used.
The schedule slipped, though: the job took four times longer than estimated. On finishing, a light clearcoat went over the steel and boiled linseed oil onto the wood, with the natural rusting left as a wanted look rather than a flaw. West Weld clearly puts in the hours on architectural steel like this.
Project by West Weld. Watch it on their YouTube channel: