{"id":122,"date":"2013-03-22T10:20:07","date_gmt":"2013-03-22T14:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ironfenceshop.com\/blog\/?p=122"},"modified":"2016-01-27T10:45:55","modified_gmt":"2016-01-27T15:45:55","slug":"what-is-the-difference-between-iron-and-steel-fence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ironfenceshop.com\/blog\/what-is-the-difference-between-iron-and-steel-fence\/","title":{"rendered":"What is the difference between Wrought Iron Fence and Steel Fence?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Iron<\/a>
Iron Man or Man of Steel? Iron Fence or Steel Fence? Confused Yet?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While shopping for fence, it can get very confusing when you see terms like ‘iron’ and ‘steel’ being tossed around and interchanged.\u00a0 So what are the real differences between them?<\/p>\n

In the modern sense of manufacturing, they are all fairly interchangeable in terms of fence advertising and marketing.\u00a0 In the scientific sense, iron is an element whereas steel is an alloy.\u00a0 Or in more basic terms, iron is a standalone ingredient that can be harvested from the earth whereas steel is a product made from iron and carbon combined.<\/p>\n

So, what does this mean to you when looking for fence?\u00a0 It means read the fine print and ask questions.\u00a0 Here is a quick rundown of the three and how i would categorize modern products:<\/p>\n

\"Iron<\/a>
Iron Versus Steel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

IRON<\/strong><\/span> – The ‘old world’ wrought iron that was pounded out with an anvil and sledge is not commercially available anymore.\u00a0 There are probably less than a handful of shops left in the country that can do that work and the ones that can command a premium price. \u00a0\u00a0 Steel is a superior material to work with, so it has been favored over iron for the last 80-90 years.\u00a0 I would consider our Stronghold Iron the closest to an authentic iron fence on the market today.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because while we do use steel for the pickets, posts, horizontal rails and gate frames; we use real sand-cast ductile iron on our finial tips, post caps, gate frame caps and fence panel brackets.\u00a0 That is something 99.9% of other fence manufacturers cannot say.\u00a0 Why do we use steel and iron?\u00a0 Because while steel is excellent for rolling, stamping and cutting; it is not as good for shaped detail work.\u00a0 Sand-cast iron allows us to craft a more artistic piece that is not only strong, but beautiful.<\/p>\n

STEEL<\/strong><\/span> – Steel fence is what majority of the metal fence available today (except aluminum) is comprised of.\u00a0 Quality of materials varies by fence manufacturer, so the devil is in the details.\u00a0 Standard steel fence will have no iron components and use thinner stamped steel for brackets and accents.\u00a0 That is why the other fence makers all use that standard ‘pinched top’ where they just squish the end of the picket into a shape.\u00a0 Its cheaper to manufacture that way, but it also leaves you wanting in terms of appearance.\u00a0 Even if you spend the extra money to upgrade to a finial tip, their tips are about 50% smaller than ours and either die-cast or plastic.\u00a0 Worse yet, they are just pressure fit onto the picket.\u00a0 So you have to get a couple hundred of them pushed on straight.\u00a0 And if they wiggle on, they wiggle off!\u00a0 Does this mean that other manufactured fences are of poor quality?\u00a0 Not necessarily, but they sacrifice the beauty of a combined steel and iron look for less expensive manufacturing.\u00a0 Even on something as boring as the fence bracket, our ductile iron brackets are MUCH stronger than the stamped steel collars they other fence manufacturers use.<\/p>\n

\"Our<\/a>
Our Cast Iron Finial Welded on Steel Picket and Rail<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the end, our Stronghold Iron fence gives you the best of both worlds that other manufacturers just cannot offer. Still confused and have questions?\u00a0 Feel free to give us a call or shoot us an email.\u00a0 We would be happy to help out!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While shopping for fence, it can get very confusing when you see terms like ‘iron’ and ‘steel’ being tossed around and interchanged.\u00a0 So what are the real differences between them?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,2,10,3],"tags":[38,114],"class_list":["post-122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buying-fence","category-fence-products","category-things-to-know-before-buying-fence","category-iron-fence-gates","tag-iron-fence","tag-steel-fence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ironfenceshop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ironfenceshop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ironfenceshop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ironfenceshop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ironfenceshop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ironfenceshop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":836,"href":"https:\/\/www.ironfenceshop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions\/836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ironfenceshop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ironfenceshop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ironfenceshop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}