Stainless Steel and Powder Coated Railing

Steel and Powder Coated Railing

Many people today have rediscovered the beauty and classic touch of metal for home decor. One of the reasons so many people love to use metal is its strength and durability. However, if you are thinking of stainless steel as just being available in one color (the traditional metal color), you have not discovered the possibilities that powder coating can give you, making your next railing project much more than just traditional iron or steel colors. 

What is Powder Coating?

Powder coating is a very cost-effective and durable option to finish metals like stainless steel. There are other options for creating a finish look, including more traditional liquid enamel or acrylic finishes, but to get the most attractive and affordable option with a wide range of finish colors available, your best bet is to go with powder coating. This process uses a dry powder rather than liquid paint, applied electrostatically and then finished with a heat process that forms a coat much stronger than a usual coat of paint.

The Benefits of Powder Coating

As mentioned, powder coating is far more durable than traditional paint, which makes it a favorite for many different applications where items might be subject to significant wear and tear from weather and other sources—for example, outdoor railings at your home. In addition to its durability, it is also a very affordable option to get railings or other stainless steel from Wasatch Steel in the color of your choice. The application process ensure that you will get a smooth, even coat for your finish with the right thickness and no running or sagging like you may get with liquid paint, so it looks professional and clean. There are a wide range of color possibilities as well so you can get exactly the shade you want to match your home, and with the right skills you can also get a variety of special effects for the coating, giving you a one-of-a-kind finish appearance.

 

Finally, powder coating is often preferred over other paint methods because it is an environmentally-friendly option. The process emits almost no volatile organic compounds and has far less hazardous waste than more conventional paint methods, and even the excess powder can be recycled almost indefinitely, so there is very little waste. In addition, new developments in cleaning solutions, including phosphate-free cleaning products, maximize performance while minimizing the environmental impacts of the process.

Set Your Style

With all the options available for powder coating paint colors, you can easily get exactly the match you want for your indoor or outdoor railing projects. Start at Wasatch Steel, where you can select the stainless steel railing style from one of the widest selections of designs and sizes. Choose from traditional styles, simple styles, ornate and whimsical looks, and even contemporary styles. Next, get your railing spindles powder coated to give them a uniform, smooth finish. Keep in mind that thinner coatings often do not have as uniform a look as a thicker finish, so you’ll want to add several coats to get the best outcome. It’s best to work with someone skilled at working with powder coat tools so you can get the railing properly prepped for optimal adhesion and to keep it looking great in the long term, plus get long-lasting corrosion resistance with the highest quality paints.

 

Being Creative With Steel

Steel is one product that has many faces—when you first think about steel products, things like industrial warehouses, vehicles, and sterile hospital tools may come to mind. However, if you look closely at the world, steel can be found in so many different areas of our lives, both function and artistic. It would take too long to list all the places where you might see steel, but here are some of the most common places you’ll come across it in life.

Functional Steel

The road you drove to work on today probably had steel in it. In fact, if you work in a commercial building, chances are that building also includes steel in its framework, walls, and perhaps even in other areas. In addition, the car you drive on a daily basis to get you to work, school, extracurricular activities, and on vacations is also made of steel. Most tools are also made of steel, whether they are small handheld tools like a hammer or saw, or larger tools such as a forklift, bobcat, or tractor. The sheer volume of steel in our daily lives makes it one of the most ubiquitous, and perhaps underappreciated, materials that we come across.

 

Cities and communities use steel to construct everyday items such as park benches and road signs, playground equipment, bridges, and buildings. Companies use steel to make everything from tables and chairs to medical devices, small appliances, refinery tanks, and chemical plants. In some cases, the steel may be mixed with other metals to increase hardness, improve rust protection, and more. In fact, you see so much steel in so many different forms every day that you probably don’t even really notice when you see it.

Artistic Steel

There is also an artistic side to steel, whether you are planning to use it as an artist or not. Many people choose to incorporate steel into their home décor, perhaps as part of a larger metal piece of wall art, or as an accessory to accent other furniture. You may have steel in your staircase, or your appliances at home. Many people also use steel as an artistic piece of décor in their yard, using it for signs, fences, stair railings, and more.

If you have specific artistic preferences, you can visit a place like Wasatch Steel where steel services include shearing, punching, or plasma cutting machines that shape them into just about anything you can imagine.

Another popular use for steel as an artistic and functional item is to create signs for your business, address signs for your home, and more. With the tools to create any sign, if you can draw it or imagine it, Wasatch Steel can make it a reality for you.

Life as we know it would be dramatically different without steel products—the ability to transport goods, construct buildings, explore space, cook food in the oven, and countless other activities rely on the lightweight, durable strength that steel provides.

Structural Steel

Structural steel is all around us in the world, supporting everything from our high-rise buildings to bridges, roads, and even homes. According to a 2012 report by the American Institute of Steel Construction, the industry supplied structural steel for over 8,000 buildings and bridges in 2011, and has revenue in excess of $10 billion annually.  

Types of Structural Steel


There are many different types of structural steel you can use, and the type you choose ultimately depends on the construction project you are working on. Some of the most common include:

Beams


Beams are the backbone of most structural projects, particularly for larger projects. There are a few different types that are commonly used on construction projects, known as an I-beam, Wide flange steel beam (W) with an I-shaped cross-section and wide parallel flange surfaces, American standard beam (S) with an I-shaped cross-section and sloping inner flange surfaces, Bearing Pile (HP) with an H-shaped cross-section, and other miscellaneous shapes that don’t fall into the above-mentioned categories.

Beams are often identified using a measurement of the width (in inches), by the weight per unit length, or the amount of pounds of force per foot it can withstand. For example, a W beam with a depth of 27 inches that has a weight per foot of 130 pounds would be denoted as W27 x 130.

 

Channels

Channels are another common type of structural steel that you can find at Wasatch Steel. Standard American Channels (C) look like an I-beam cut in half, with a C-shape from the side. They have sloping surfaces on the inner side of the C-shape, and are used to mount, brace, and support structural elements during construction. They are measured and denoted using a similar system to beams, with the depth, followed by the pound force per foot.  

Angles

Angles, like the name would indicate, are steel beams that have two sides that meet in an angle. They look like an L, and could have either two equal sides, or two unequal sides, depending on the type of angle you are using. The measurement system for these is different from beams and channels, indicating the measurement for each leg (Leg A and Leg B), plus the thickness of the steel for each leg. For example, an angle might be denoted as L4 x 3 x ¾, which would indicate an angle that has one side that is 4 inches, another that is 3 inches, and it has ¾ inch thick steel on each side.

Wear Resistant Steel

Steel is one of the most universally used building products because it is extremely affordable to make, it is very strong, and it is abundant in our society today. There are so many different types of steel and different things made with steel it is impossible to name them all, from the roads we drive on to the appliances inside our homes.

Steel has been around for thousands of years, first forged by blacksmiths in its original form as iron, and then refined in the mid-1800s with processes that made mass production easy and inexpensive. Over the years, steel has been refined further to become one of the most common materials that can be formed into almost anything you might need.

 

Wear-Resistant Steel

Because of its strength and durability, steel is used in many common industrial applications. While you cannot use the same steel for such large products as you would use to build a lightweight vehicle or small kitchen appliance, you can use a specialty product called wear-resistant steel, or abrasion-resistant steel.

This type of steel is designed to resist wear better than other different types of steel, so it is suited well for industries, machines, and uses where the products are likely to be subject to significant abrasive force or impact wear. This type of wear and tear on your machinery or your surfaces can cost you a lot of money in the long run, if you are required to continuously replace and repair your products due to abrasion or other forces.

Common Uses for Wear-Resistant Steel

There are many places where companies might need to use abrasion resistant steel, but some of the most common ways that it is used include the manufacture of heavy machinery, such as earth movers, mining operations, construction equipment, dump bodies, materials handling equipment, and crushing machines. You can also use it for construction of conveyors, chutes, liners, aggregate containers, and more.

Getting the Right Abrasion Resistant Steel

Most of the time when you buy this type of steel from a place like Wasatch Steel, it will come in as-rolled condition. It will often have hardening agents like carbon and manganese so it has increased durability, far above the standard durability that regular carbon steel would have. Fortunately despite its longer life and ability to resist wear much better than its more standard counterparts, the cost of this type of steel is often not much more than traditional steel grades.

Most abrasion resistant steel is measured in terms of its hardness, using the Brinnell Hardness Test (HB) or the Rockwell Test, and can range from 300HB-600HB depending on your specific application and needs. Fortunately even the wear-resistant steel with increased hardness levels still maintains much of its weldability.

When it comes to your operations, one of the most important thing is having equipment that works the way it should work, and minimizing the costs associated with regular maintenance, and the downtime that is caused by equipment that breaks down. When you need quality wear-resistant steel, come to Wasatch Steel to see our extensive selection.

Steel Grating

If you have ever needed a strong and durable surface that you can use for loads that require heavy duty material, then steel grating is probably one of the best steel products you could find to do the job. Not only is it a very strong product, capable of handling just about any load that you might need, it is also a very affordable, and even “green” option.

What is Steel Grating?

Steel grating is actually a general term that can be used to describe a wide variety of products, everything from spaced bars to expanded metal and diamond surface. It is best used for areas where you have pedestrian or light vehicle traffic, and comes in an extensive selection of styles, thicknesses, and load requirements. When you order steel grating, you can have the option of smooth or serrated slip-resistant surfaces for your specific application.

Common Steel Grating Applications

While you can use steel grating for a really wide variety of different applications, some of the most common uses include walkways, industrial flooring, ramps, bridges, trench covers, drainage ditch covers, platforms, and stairways, plus partitions, fencing, and infill panels.

 

Reasons to Use Steel Grating

The main reasons you would choose these type of steel products from a place like Wasatch Steel is ease of use, strength, and durability. When you have steel grating, it is really easy to weld, cut, or form, and you get one of the strongest and hardest metals available so you know it can withstand a significant force. If strength, safety, load-bearing capacity, and weight are primary concerns for you, there is no better product than this. Since steel can also be recycled indefinitely, you can get high quality recycled steel with a lower carbon footprint and be more earth-friendly.

Different Types of Grating

The term “steel grating” is actually used to describe a range of products, many of which are available from Wasatch Steel. This includes:

·         Bar Grating, which is one of the most durable and rugged of all the different types of grading. You can get it in an assortment of load bearing and weight requirements, depending on the size and spacing of the bars. This product will include evenly spaced bars of a specified length, width, and thickness, joined with perpendicular welded crossbars. This includes locked by swaging panels, press locked, close mesh, and castable grating.

·         Plank Grating, which comes in one of the widest varieties of heights and widths so you get a versatile product that can be formed for any application, with easy field handling and cutting options. You can get great walkway styles, different shapes, and lightweight construction. This includes the common styles of diamond surface (a slip-resistant favorite when it includes serrated edges), large hole for increased load capacity, and slotted surface for increased water passage in applications where moisture needs to flow through.

·         Expanded Metal, which is stretched steel that has regular diamond shapes that still maintains high strength and durability, but is perfect for lighter traffic options, such as walkways, treads, or other similar structures.

When you need a durable and solid material for a variety of different structures, you can trust that steel grating from WasatchSteel will provide you with exactly the kind of long-term solution you require

Steel vs. Wood

The Benefits of Using Steel

When you’re planning the next construction project, you have plenty of options for building materials. Decisions must be made on everything from the frame to the roof, and finding the right material based on properties, cost, and benefits is critical. One item growing in popularity for construction is the use of steel products in place of wood for frames, roofing, and more. Here are some of the biggest reasons why you should take a look at steel.

Strength

Steel is one of the strongest materials available, and also one of the most economical. It is often used in construction of huge skyscrapers, transportation projects (such as roads and bridges) and other large projects because of its strength and durability, but it can be used in smaller-scale projects like roofing or home construction as well. It is a product that will not split, rot, or warp over time, so the walls, floors, and frames you build remain straight and strong for decades to come.

Because steel can withstand such high loads, it is also one of the best materials to go up against nature’s strongest disasters, including high winds, hurricane, and even earthquakes.

 

Safety

We always want to think about safety first, and when it comes to steel building products from Wasatch Steel, you get some of the safest material available for your construction project. According to the National Fire Protection Agency, fire departments respond to almost 1.4 million fires each year, resulting in more than $11.6 billion in direct property loss. Steel frames are stronger and more fire-resistant than wood, they won’t add fuel to an existing fire, and they are also less likely to collapse in the event of a fire, making your home safer. Some states with high fire danger have already begun requiring residential and commercial construction with steel, and sometimes having a steel frame can even lower your monthly insurance premiums.

Cost-Effective

One of the reasons steel is so cost-effective is its recyclability. In fact, 100 percent of all steel is recyclable, and much of the steel in the U.S. today is recycled in one form or another. In addition, the process of making and recycling steel yields only a small amount of scrap (about 2 percent, compared to 20 percent for wood), so there is less to discard and haul away. These lower costs often translate into lower overall costs for building materials.

Since steel weighs much less than wood, the costs to transport and handle it are much lower, plus maintenance costs are significantly reduced because of its resistance to rotting, warping, bug infestation, and other things that can quickly ruin wood.

 

Environmentally Friendly

As mentioned, steel is a very efficient and environmentally friendly product. Since steel can be recycled indefinitely without affecting the quality and makeup of the product, it has one of the highest recycle rates of any material in the U.S.—as much as 66 percent of all steel is recycled. If you use steel in place of wood, you are also getting the earth-friendly benefit of saving trees.

Wood requires pressure treatment, which can result in harmful chemical that could contaminate soil, plus pesticides and toxins that protect the wood from bug infestations, vermin, termites, and other attacks. No chemical treatments for steel also means no off-gassing from resins or other chemicals.

Whatever kind of project you might be working on, from home construction to commercial, steel has tremendous advantages over wood. No matter what size project you have, visit Wasatch Steel for all your steel building products.

Creative Steel

Creative Steel

When most people think of steel, they probably don’t think about using it for creative and decorative purposes. Often we only think about steel in cold or plain environments, such as in a hospital room, a warehouse, or used for boring everyday things like appliances. There are many different things that you can use steel for as a creative way to spruce up your décor. In fact, adding steel décor to your home is a great way to give it a whole new updated and chic look without spending a fortune, since steel is one of the most affordable, earth-friendly, and durable metals out there. Here are just a few ideas you could use for creative steel from the steel supermarket at Wasatch Steel.

1. Add Metal to Your Walls. Metal wall hangings come in a wide variety of different styles and sizes, and can instantly add dimension and depth to your room. Whether you opt for a more structured metal piece of décor, or you want something abstract, you can find several steel products at the steel supermarket. You could even use it for shelving, accents on your furniture, and on your cabinets and doors.

2. Add Shine to Your Kitchen. Many homeowners use tile or other similar products to create a kitchen or bathroom backsplash, and while they can be a beautiful addition to your home, they can get pricey (plus it’s the same as everyone else’s kitchen). Instead, get a metal backsplash to add shine and glimmer to your kitchen, giving it a “Top Chef” kind of feel. If you don’t like the shine or sterile look of traditional steel, go for something colorful such as copper or bronze.

3. Put it in Your Garden. Gardens are a great place to add metal, with so many creative applications you can use. Find some old gardening tools, such as a wheel barrow or old watering cans and place them in the garden. Or find a local artist who can create a wind ornament or a stake that has your favorite flowers or animals on it. Metal planters can also add a new dimension to the exterior of your home, especially when they catch the light just right and have a reflective glow.

 

4. Set a Trend with Exposed Metal. If you want to go for a trendier look, you can try out some exposed metal in your home, by allowing the vents and duct work, pipes, or other metal to be out in the open in your home. Of course, you want to make sure the pipes and ducts are presentable, so visit the steel supermarket at Wasatch Steel if you need to pick up a few new ones. Pairing exposed pipes and steel with exposed concrete floors can complement your minimalist décor and open floor plan with an urban appeal.

5. Add Metal Accents. If you’re not ready to go all-out on your metal décor, consider adding it as an accent in several smaller areas of your home. For example, you could add shiny metal brackets on that plain old wood shelf can instantly add flair, and adding cabinet hardware to plain cabinets can give your kitchen or bathroom a whole new look. You could also add a beautiful metal bench to your entryway, or a refurbished metal chair to your living room for quick, small decorative touches.

There is so much you can do to add a creative spark to your home and yard with metal touches. Find all the steel products you need at Wasatch Steel to start your creative metal decorating today.