Corton steel pond feature for a rusted finish
We were contacted by our client Chris Prior Garden Design who tasked us with building a Corten Steel capping feature to go over a pond wall and integrated waterfall spout. The brief – to ensure it would look sleek whilst fitting in with the style of the ladscaped garden. Corten Steel was the material of choice to ensure it would achieve the desired rust finish the client was looking for matching the style of the garden.
After being given the initial design concept from Chris we went onsite during the early stages of the garden landscaping project completed by Greener Landscapes to take dimensions before creating the final design in 3D CAD where we produced our workshop details and flat patterns ready for manufacturing.
showing onsite the first stages of the large pond being built, this is approximately 3.5mtrs x 2mtrs in size.
The steel capping feature had to fit nicely over the pre-made wall and pond which was also going to be rendered and GRP lined.
When designing the pond feature we needed to give a lot of attention to the design of the waterfall spout as this would shape the flow of the water to the pond. As the water would be a key feature this is a very important element.
we modeled the waterfall spout in 3d cad and created our flat patterns, shown here is the 3d cad model and the finished corten steel fabrication
We fabricated the wall capping so it ended up as one piece measuring 3.2m long x 1.85 metre wide. This was a big build needing to be made in sections.
We also needed to give thought to make sure all sections joined with minimal distortion to keep a nice looking waterline.
We designed the fabrication in 3d cad taking into account the jigs that we also needed to design that would enable us to manufacture the corten steel wall cap.
When fabricating in the workshop we made use of our 3d jig table system to ensure the structure would come together as intended and with the jig table we could build the wall capping structure and control the welds for minimal distortion on the finished fabrication.
The process involved waterject cutting the pieces from Corten Steel plate. We then folded all the parts, jigged up and fully welded with special Corten Steel welding wire, followed by fully grinding, sand blasting and sanding it so it became one very large part. The sand blasting and sanding were for surface preparation which assisted in creating a nice even rusted finish.
Corten steel provides a great rusted finish which was the perfect choice for this project as it blends incredibly well with the newly landscaped garden and over time it’s appearance will only continue to get better as the rust deepens and plants begin to develop and grow around it.
Read our post here on some other Corten Steel garden water feature work we did as part of this same project and find out more information about the beauty of Corten Steel and how it could work for your next garden landscape or sculpture project.
Contact us today to discuss you next potential project whether it is a simple sleek design or a large-scale 3D sculpture.