Do you have an Ed Allen textbook leftover from architecture school? If so, start there with the chapter on metals. Also browse your firm's materials library for product brochures, catalogs, etc. Subscribe to a free magazine, like "Metal Architecture", and read articles and look at the pictures each month...
Trade associations also publish guides on the basics of their products and techniques. Another good source of basic general overview stuff on most architectural products: review books for the ARE (which your firm might have, and if they don't you'll need them soon enough anyway so you might want to invest in your own.)

Annodizing is an electro-chemical process. It converts the surface of a metal(usually aluminum) to an oxidized coating to make it more corrosion resitant.
Galvanizing is a "hot dip" coating for making metal (generally steel) more corrosion resistant.
Stainless steel is always an alloy, and always has chromium in it, and usually also nickel. But, there 100s of different types of stainless steel alloys.

As far as your other questions: does your firm have a set of Sweets catalogs? You can look up "flag poles" and find more information than you ever wanted to know. And if by some chance you can't find what you need in there just pick a flagpole company and call a rep. Tell them you're an architect who needs to speak to someone about technical specifications for flagpoles...

Thanks Aluminate. I know the dictionary definition of galvanizing and anondizing, but don't know when its necessary or not and what the cost difference can be. I didn't know the anondizing was for corrosion resistance, I thought it was a look. What corrodes aluminum anyways? Air? Moisture? I have read all I can from Sweets and manufacturer's, believe me, I have flipped thru "Metal Architecture". I am still not satisfied. I don't have the Ed Allen book though. I have seen a book called Metals in Architecture in a design books flyer but it is like $80 and not sure its worth it. Any experience with it?
In my part of the country we spec steel tree grates and let them rust. Found this out the hard way as well. Since then though, I have noticed plenty of rust stains all over the sidewalks and broken rusted out tree grates and the architect in my office whom I asked WHY steel he said CAUSE with a big dopey grin and couldn't tell me more. duh?

When aluminum corrodes it oxidizes. Its own oxide then protects it from further corrosion. So, if you want to make it less likely to corrode then you oxidize it artificially (electro-chemically.)
It is corroded to some degree by air and water (i.e. weather), but the rate drops off as it develops oxidation. It is much more susceptible to damage by acids.

Sorry if my definitions were too "dictionary."

Tree grates are usually cast iron - not steel (which is not to say that your city is not using steel, but I don't have any info to give you on that.) Cast iron does cause rust marks. Advantages are low tooling and production costs, ability to be easily cast into any complex shape, and very high hardness and wear resistance. If I wanted to know more advantages and disadvantages of various types/materials of tree gratings I would really call some reps who sell them.
That would also be my approach to finding out specific unit costs for various elements, finishes and processes.

You can also get braod cost information in Means - but if your office uses Means much for cost estimating they may have a factor by which they multiply numbers found in there - to account for the local market, based on past experience.

I called the tree grate people, they said all the info was on the web site and I would have to look there. Click. The info I wanted wasn't on the website. I spend a lot of wasted time talking to reps who know less about thier product than I do. I'm sorry if I sound like a whining fool lately but it is make it or break it time for me and this architecture shit.

Are you at school or a firm? If you are at a firm, you can ask the reps to come in and tell you about their products. you get to grill 'em and THEY bring the free lunch! My other suggestion, sign up for a welding class.

To add to the last post and the wleding class, I know you want to learn more the decorative side than the structural side, but the first level of a welding class usually doesn't cover structural issues. you learn the basics about the performance of the tools and the materials. it really gives you a foundation to learn more about the materials later.

Ok... well part of me wants to find the information for you (which prompted me to type "tree grates" into a search engine, which turned up over 7000 results, of which I read the first 12 or so, and learned more than I ever wanted about tree grates in steel, cast iron, various recycled plastics, opinions from forestry experts on the pros and cons of utilizing tree grates, and a lot of different cities' "design review standards" and zoning-type regulations regarding specifications for acceptable tree grates. Which reminded me to remind you to check with your city or town to make sure you're not required to use steel or whatever.) But I don't know what exactly you're trying to find.
If the first rep knows nothing, and your coworkers know nothing, then call a different company rep.

You know, if this type of thing is going to factor into your make-or-break decision-making process then you may want to consider that it is truly never-ending. No matter what you learn today - about tree grates or metal or flagpoles or anything - you're going to need to specify something that you don't know anything about a few days later. Today's new thing for me was sound-proof server racks.
If it's going to seriously stress you out everytime you feel unknowledgeable about something then this will be a scary career. (Actually if I felt that way I might go become a product rep for something, which would let me be an expert on one highly specific thing.)

Anyway good luck with your search and have a good night.

p.s. do consider starting to study for the ARE if you're not doing so already. When I did that I managed to pick up a lot of basics about all sorts of things that I'd missed somehow along the architecture school and internship route. It made me feel a lot more confident about my overall knowledge base and competence - not to mention giving me something to concentrate on other than my troubles with coworkers and flagpoles.

thank you aluminate. your last paragraph is quite helpful. i hadn't started to study for the exams yet

this is what people in the small shops I used to work in refer to. It could help.

Having taken a welding class I’d cay skip it. You aren’t trying to learn how to make metal things so much as trying to learn how to shop.

What you should get in the habit of doing is calling up suppliers and asking for a quote. Then you can make comparisons. Prices change and some things are cheaper in one application and not another.

Re: your question. “Steel” (mild steel), Stainless, Brass and what get sold as “aluminum” for architectural applications are all alloys. Cast iron just iron, copper is just copper, chrome is just chrome. Check your periodic table, if it’s not on there it’s an alloy.

This mainly concerns you in terms of what is in the alloy and how it will oxidize. Iron and steel will rust and need to be painted or powder coated or galvanized (dipped in zinc) or chromed or…. whatever. However, if these coatings are ever compromised rust will begin to form underneath, so maintenance and wear becomes an issue.

Copper and brass or bronze (they get used interchangeably a lot) patina, as you know, unless polished.

Stainless or aluminum won’t corrode unless they are put in contact with other metals and a galvanic reaction takes place.

Keep track of finishes for nicer stuff: mirror polished, linear brush, various grades of non directional, patinas (ie. blackened steel). Steel comes in hot rolled (the cheaper black stuff with the mill scale still on it) or cold rolled which is smooth and shiny but still the same stuff.

For your tree grates steel will be cheapest but will need to be painted. “Cause” most likely means “Cause it’s cheapest and I don’t give a shit”. I bet they make bronze or stainless ones. Argue that it will last longer and look nicer.

In regard to the price difference of stainless steel vs. aluminum. You never really will know why there is a price difference between the two. It may be the contractor has a way of getting stainless steel to serve your purpose because another job didn't use it and he needs to get rid of the material. Costs for contruction are impossible to estimate accurately. I have seen prices before a bid change 30% in a matter of minutes. No matter how much you understand the costs of contruction there are so many factor to generating a price that no two will ever be the same.

thanks guys. these are the things that the people i work with don't like to talk about.

Strawberry, they don't talk about this stuff because they most probably know about it. Metals get highly technical. Each alloy or material has different pluses & minuses. Because your interest is more architectural - for look and longevity - I offer some insights based on projects that have aided in my learing curve over a decade. I ask lots of questions which might not have been helpful at the tiime, but which nest together to solve a puzzle in the long term. This odd range of info is geared towards long term client goals.

aluminum is very susceptible to water based oxidation if it is not anodized or given a protective coating. The higher the mineral content in water (vs, distilled which is basically acidic) - the less it will corrode/oxidize. Try this experiment to simulate the process.

Take a tall empty water glass. Make a concave cup nested in the top of the glass. Fill that will distilled water. As it evaporates you might need to refill it a bit over a day or so. It will cause the interior surface of the foil to get these fizzy looking white bubbles of corrosion. It will eventually eat thru the foil................... I did a sign design and specified a specific metal and treatment for corrosion resistence. The contractor replaced one material for another and all hell broke loose about 9 months later. It was in a highly irrigated area. It started to look pretty awful.

To anodize you need to specify something in a #6000 series aluminum. Clear anodizing holds up well as a window glazing /coastal marine environment for nearly 50 years. I don't know how it would fair with use wear like a rail.

Stainless alloys have varying content of some ferrous metals. These are chemically reduced from the surface by a process called "passivating". Passivating is done on #304 or #316 in architectural settings primarily when the material has been heated or formed. If you don't do that, it will rust, which is not what clients pay for in SS stuff. There are companies that have large tanks that do primarily aerospace type work, and there are firms that do field passivating with less caustic materials like a citric acid. If you chemical mill ss - an etchant process - that can eternally change the basic assumed properties of stainless. The main chemical process (chem milling using ferric chloride) to make etched ss elevator interior stuff like buttons and face plaques or ADA materials - you cannot weld or heat over about 300F. Otherwise is cracks like safety glass.............. welding a backside clip is a no-no. I worked on a piece once for a memorial and did research for about 9 months to find out if it was even feasible. Typical size limitations are 24" wide, .25 thick and 72 long for ferric chloride line (its an enclosed conveyor belt unit that is like a dishwasher shower line spraying nasty acid over the piece. )

Things that are chem milled using nitric / sulfuric / hydroflouric acids can be post process welded. Ferric chloride cannot. I befriended a metallurgist. The chem milling companies were not aware of the problem or conscequence.

Stainless can generally be brushed the long distance of the sheet or plate, one or two sides. A use like a counter can cause some people to get huffy in time. The typical #4 grain pattern will get scuffed against the primary direction with wear. Its great for sinks - dishes survive falls in it most of the time.

Stainless steel in thicker plate (over .25") is prone to rice size or smaller voids. The same also happens with steel plate )(A-36 over about 3/4") It comes with the territory. If you buy or spec. steel, ask for the certs (mill certifications if it is used in anything structural or where any liabities are concerned downwind). It can be xrayed for voids. If you need a thicker piece of ss finished to match something (like a #230 bead blast) assume that you might need to buy thicker material and have it blancard ground to remove surface flaws for a uniform finish.You might loose up to 25 % of the material.

Stainless steel costs have gone thru the roof. China is consuming most of the metals market. Prices have gone up about 250 - 300 % in the last year or so. I used to get it for under 1.00 lb when I needed over a ton. Now its about 3+.

Problems in the field can be exacerbated by activities of skateboarders. If you have #316 ss, a skate boarders railing aerobatics can deposit surface iron or other oxidizing metals in the surface finish of the ss. It might need to be field passivated and changes made like those little antiskate bumbers that discourage misuse.

In some architectural work - #976 bronze alloy looks like stainless. Its a white bronze also known as dairy metal. Stainless is more blue, #976 is a bit warmer in color. It comes in bar and ingots and is primarily used for casting. It has to be perfect if cast. There is no repairing it by brazing. It contains a certain amount of zinc, that when heated to 800 degrees will boil out of the alloy leaving unsightly pinhole voids. The biggest thing that you can cast with it is about 18".

Galvanizing has a pretty good spec typically used in CalTrans work for the barricade railingsat roadside (I'm in SoCal). Galvanizing costs are calculated basically on the added zinc weight to the original material. I only use solid plate based ferrous metals versus tube. Galvanizing will increase the basic material weight about 7%. Vendor formula - Take your material weight & multiply by 1.07%. I have a good vendor and can figure a base price of .36 a pound for the total job weight. It is up .03 in the last two years. One (metal contractor) vendor I work with pays more than double that. A contractor will typically double their outsource cost. Probably the biggest tanks for hot dip galvanizing around are 5.5 wide, 8.5 deep about 32 long.

There is metallizing. Pretty cool process but it is not fool proof and needs a good applicator. It is a torch heated zinc spray versus dipping in a bath. One spec number for coastal marine air protection is - #8515 (I think)- its 85% zinc and 15% aluminum and offers increased protection. End coating is about .2mm thick. Sharp corners are problematic because they can be worn away or chipped more easily.
Things with welded nooks and crannies are not a good bet.

Tnemec Paints are about the best protection in a paint out there. They are cement based paints originally used for large water tanks and chemical tanks. They are now coming into favor in architecture. They are pricey. You get what you pay for.

Powder coating is generally a joke. People hear powder coating and think ' great, ;-) eternal paint. " Powder coating to be an effective coating requires that the piece be thoroughly heated to about 400 degrees F before it is coated. That can be expensive. Most powderdoaters short cut the process (at least the ones that I have seen), They will warrantee their work for about 1 - 2 years. If done correctly, the work should last over 10 - 12. Bad work can be seen in stuff that starts to oxidize and chip in a year or two. My caveat is - the bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten. You get what you pay for.


Then the kicker of all time. I had a general contractor replace #316 stainless steel with aluminum in a bid for architectural metals. I was a special consultant / fabricator. I knew by what the piece was that there was no way that the piece was aluminum. I also knew that to use aluminum would have caused the piece to fail in about 2 years. Concrete eats aluminum. That is why there is no aluminum used as rebar. It was a government build project.

Do not assume that the contractor is going to give you what you specifiy for whatever reason. They are chasing the job, and do not necessarily have a clients best interest in mind. If you think you don't know, just figure how little the client knows. I would always ask for receipts for materials as a job progresses. Different concretes react with different metals. If an engineer specifies a certain mix or formula of concrete.................. there is sure to be a reason. I heard a project in florida where all the railings on a large commercial project failed at attachment in concrete within about 18 months. The metal contractor used a quickset, instead of what the engineered specified. His reaction was sort of 'duh, I always used this stuff............" He had to redo the whole project and probably is no longer in business. I heard that one from the concrete engineer / technical specialist who was brought in after the problem arose to resolve the issue.

Too much info.................but probably helpful later on at some point. enjoy.

ps. you can't get titanium unless you have a DOD (department of defense) number. Its being used in the war(s).

#110 copper comes only in 3 foot widths of plate. Everything else comes - ss & steel (if you look long and hard enough) in up to 10 foot widths and long pieces about 24 feet or more. Mostly 4 x 8 & 5 x 8 and 5 x 10.

art tech geek you are my hero, thank you.
my application isn't a railing. It is metal bars embedded in existing 3/4" vertical v-groove reveals in an exterior concrete wall. The wall is going to undergo extensive patching and a surface stucco coat as it is in horrible shape but is heavily rooted in the community as an icon and cannot be torn down. The reveals in the concrete are not crisp but should be kept for maintaining the original design which they are paramount to. The stucco contractor thinks my idea of embedding the metal bars in these reveals to keep them is a brilliant idea and he thinks it makes his job that much easier to make look "clean". The principal architect doesn't think it's a good idea at all (for no given reason) and is still trying to value engineer the metal bars out as we need to cut the scope yet.
I wish I could talk about metals like that!

Strawberry,
Do you want these inserts in the face to be metal - or the look of metal that generally behaves as such?

I do lots of reading (its a disease i think) and came across a patch material for remachining cast metal. - its a repair stuff. in industry, machine parts get broken or damaged in use, and instead of remanufacturing from scratch, this stuff allows a repair that is very serviceable. I have never used it mind you, but it sounds like it might work instead of doing fabricated inserts if your contours are not rectilinear.

You could probably get this material and add mica pigments (look metallic, and don't oxidize) to add to the factory mix. The machinng patch material is probably from Bostik or Loctite (certainly an industrial adhesives co. I could look it up with a moment of time).


How wide are the channels? Or overall dimensionality? Depth, width and overall wall area that you are dealing with? What kind of budget is the client or principal architect comfortable with????

A mind is a terrible thing to waste. So is a job that falls short of the goal and runs over the dollar allotment. I might have another idea or so.

e-)

ps its heroine

they are all vertical reveals, in a v-shape with each face of the v's at 3/4". so a 3/4"x3/4" metal bar fits nice. Too small a job to have real specs, so I said to embed in mastic and mechanically fasten at top, middle, and bottom right on the drawings and that's it. They are all vertical reveals, a little over 8' long. Nothing too crazy at all to fabricate - just cut the bar, close the top and bottom (if hollow tube instead of bar), imbed and screw to wall. The application is an existing stadium for college and high school games. The existing cast in place reinf. conc. wall dates back to the 30s and was not well built. It is of art deco style with linearity and geomtrical repitition. It is not a structural wall, but a screen wall that provides the backdrop for the ticket booths and main entrance. The wall itself varies in height but doesn't get over 10' tall. The wall will undergo the patching, but it is desired that the reveals be retained and it is too easy to lose this fine detail with the amount of patching that is required to make this wall smooth and presentable.
I guess I choose metal because it goes with the art deco, streamlined, modern, geometrical look of the building, and the reveals are grouped in areas of threes and have an athletic stripe quality about them - this is how I justify making the reveals more apparant than the original design ever did by making them stick out from the face of the wall, instead of inward as reveals. This is probably why the proj. arch doesn't like my idea - not "pure" to the original intent or something. The look of the anondized aluminum is right on par with the design of the site furniture and lighting. Metal also for durability - high vandalism area and right where you can come up and beat the crap out them with a baseball bat if you wanted to. The price for the whole thing is only around 8K but we need to lose 30k. But I am not even supposed to be working on this job anymore as I have already blown our fee and we want future work from this client.

I would suggest that you use an aluminum square tube with A-36 square bar stock inside. That would minimize the cost of the aluminum, allow for the right stock to anodize. If you use solid 3/4" aluminum it will be a dollar shock. This will allow you to basically have some testasterone laden teenager to (god forbid) take a bat to it without it completely caving in. You could tap drill into back side on the corners. the composite reinforced tube from the back side with all thread and use that to attach it to the existing bruised concrete wall. You could additionally, have all the tube and rod pieces cut to the longest length .They are going to be chopped at some point - to make sure the fit is right on, cutting the tops in the field at the end will probably save some appearance headaches. . Have all your attachments done to match a standardized installation template from finished grade or floor (ie. each 12" oc). Cut trim in the field at the top. Add some mastic or other material and seal up the top or make a cap of some sort that drops into place so that the interior steel does not deteriorate, oxidize and discolor the concrete below.

Steel has gone up in price - its between .48 and .80 a lb. Aluminum is ridiculous as well, but the steel is much cheaper. You are looking at about 32 lbs a square foot of material for flat 3/4 inch plate. so figure backwards from that - you can get 12 feet in a lb. x .70 or so. Under 25 for materials each one and then add the aluminum sq. tube, mechanical attachment, and install trim costs. Make as much of the components as standardized for mindless production work as possible.

It should not break the bank and the client will like you in the long run.

PS - Remember - CONCRETE SLOWLY EATS ALUMINUM in some instances. You want to check what kind of concrete is out there, the patch material and maybe use a chemical barrier on the back side of the tube & steel combo. An industrial sealant that keeps the two apart will help.

Planning prevents disasters. If you need some contact information send me an email at my website.