Why We Build What We Build: A Craftsman's Honest Guide to Decorative Fence Panels

By Chuck | Madison Iron and Wood

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Before We Dive In — A Quick Snapshot

Here's what separates our panels from the rest:

• 12-Gauge American Steel — The "Goldilocks" of fence panel material. Strong enough to last, light enough to handle.
• Cold Rolled Steel — No mill scale means your powder coat will never flake or peel from the inside out.
• Laser Precision — Our cuts are 3–5 times cleaner than plasma. Think fine-point pen, not a Sharpie.
• Pro-Level Surface Prep — We phosphate, grind, and laser-etch every piece before a drop of paint ever touches it.
• Zinc-Rich Primer — Your "chemical insurance policy" against rust, even after a scratch.
• Architectural Powder Coat — UV inhibitors built in, so your finish lasts years — not 90 days.
• Full Weld Shop — We fabricate matching frames, posts, brackets, and footers, all finished together for a perfect color match.

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Let Me Introduce Myself

Hey, I'm Chuck.

I've spent most of my adult life working with metal — I've worked in the mills where the raw steel is actually made, as a manufacturing engineer, and yes, even in the Army where I learned a whole different way to work with metal (let's just say it involved a lot less finishing and a lot more boom).

That background gives me a perspective on materials that most fence panel makers simply don't have. So when I tell you why we build things the way we do, it's not marketing talk. It's a lifetime of hard-won, hands-dirty experience — and I think you deserve to know exactly what you're getting.

This is the honest, no-fluff breakdown of how we make our panels and why every single decision we make is intentional.

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Thickness: Why Gauge Numbers Are Backwards (And Why It Matters)

Here's something that trips up a lot of buyers: in steel, a higher gauge number means thinner metal. I know — it's counterintuitive. But it's important to understand when you're comparing products.

Let me give you a quick reference:

When we first started making panels, I went straight for 10-gauge because that's the engineer in me — when in doubt, go thicker. But here's what I learned in the field: once you weld a steel frame around a 10-gauge panel, the whole assembly gets heavy. Really heavy. That extra weight stressed out deck hardware, made installation a two-person job, and honestly didn't improve the design one bit.

On the flip side, I've seen competitors use 16-gauge — and even thinner — for fence panels. Frankly, that makes me cringe. A 16-gauge panel with a lot of detail cut out is easy to flex with your bare hands. That's not a fence panel; that's a decorative tin can.

After testing, 12-gauge is where we landed — and it's where we've stayed. It's strong, it's manageable, and it holds up to years of outdoor use without becoming a liability. This wasn't a cost-cutting decision. It was an engineered one.

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Cold Rolled vs. Hot Rolled Steel: Why the Mill Process Follows You Home

This is one of my favorite topics because it's something almost nobody in this industry talks about — and it has a direct impact on whether your powder coat lasts 5 years or 25 years.

Here's the short version of how steel is made:

• Hot Rolled Steel is heated in a furnace until it's glowing red, then squeezed through a series of rollers to reach its final thickness.
• Cold Rolled Steel goes through those same rollers, but at room temperature.

Simple enough, right? Here's where it gets important.

When you heat steel to those extreme temperatures in the mill, the surface develops what's called mill scale — a hard, flaky oxide layer that forms as a byproduct of the process. It looks almost like a dark, bluish coating on the surface of the metal.

Here's the problem with mill scale:

1. It's incredibly hard to remove — even with grinding, because it's so dense.
2. It expands and contracts differently than the steel beneath it — which means over time, as your fence heats and cools with the seasons, that scale will eventually separate from the base metal.
3. When it goes, your powder coat goes with it — because the paint bonded to the scale, not the steel.
4. Powder coat barely sticks to it in the first place — mill scale is too smooth for the paint to grip properly.

Cold rolled steel never develops mill scale because it never gets hot enough in the mill to create it. When we run our cold rolled panels through our surface grinder, we're left with a clean, slightly textured surface that powder coat loves to grip. That bond is the foundation of a finish that lasts.

We also source American-made steel exclusively. This isn't just about national pride (though I won't apologize for that). The United States holds steel producers to strict ASTM quality standards that many overseas suppliers simply don't meet. Tighter tolerances mean a more consistent surface, better powder coat adhesion, and less chance of hidden impurities causing rust down the road.

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Laser vs. Plasma: The Difference You Can See and the Difference You Can't

I started this business with a plasma cutter. I want to be upfront about that, because I'm not here to pretend plasma is garbage — it's not. It got me started, and it does a fine job in the right applications. But the day I could afford a laser, I made that move, and I've never looked back.

Here's why:

Design Detail

A plasma cutter's kerf (the width of the cut) is significantly wider than a laser's. Our laser cuts with a kerf that is 3 to 5 times narrower than plasma. In practical terms, that means we can cut detail that a plasma simply cannot replicate.

I always describe it this way: plasma is a Sharpie, laser is a fine-point pen. If you're drawing a simple shape, either one works. But if you're cutting a detailed floral scroll, an animal silhouette, or an intricate geometric pattern — the difference in sharpness is obvious the moment you hold both pieces side by side.

Edge Quality and Rust Prevention

Here's the part most people don't know about: the heat from a plasma cutter creates iron oxide on the cut edge. That oxide is essentially a form of rust — and on a detailed panel with hundreds of curves and corners, it's nearly impossible to grind off completely.

Leave iron oxide under your powder coat, and you've planted a rust seed. It will grow.

Our laser concentrates heat in an extremely small area, which means far less oxide formation on the cut edge. Cleaner edges, better paint adhesion, and significantly less long-term rust risk — especially in the tight corners and fine details where a grinder can't reach.

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Finishing: "Powder Coated" Doesn't Tell the Whole Story

If I had a dollar for every time I heard, "It says powder coated — that's good enough, right?" — well, I'd have a lot of dollars.

Here's the truth: powder coating is a process, not a guarantee. A product can be technically powder coated and still fail in a year. The finish is only as good as everything that happened before the powder ever touched the metal.

Our Surface Prep

Before any panel in our shop sees paint, we:

• Phosphate treat the steel to chemically clean the surface and improve adhesion
• Surface grind to create the ideal texture for the powder coat to grip
• Laser-etch select surfaces to further open up the steel's "pores" for the finish

Skip any one of these steps and you're building on a shaky foundation. We've seen panels from other shops bubble and rust within a season — not because of a bad powder coat, but because the prep underneath was poor. Oils, slag, and micro-rust left on the surface will eventually push through and lift your finish from below.

Our Zinc-Rich Primer

This is the step I'm most proud of, because it's the one most shops skip entirely.

Even with perfect prep, there are vulnerable spots on any panel — tight inside corners, edges, areas where the powder coat naturally applies thinner. These are the places where a chip or a scratch is most likely to expose bare steel.

So before we apply the final color coat, we apply a zinc-rich powder coat primer to every panel.

Here's how it works: zinc is a metal that is more reactive than iron. So when a scratch reaches the steel beneath the primer, the zinc sacrifices itself first — reacting with oxygen to form zinc oxide. Unlike iron oxide (rust), zinc oxide has a very tight molecular grain. It actually seals the exposed area and blocks oxygen from reaching the steel beneath.

In other words, if your panel ever gets scratched down to bare metal, the zinc primer stops the rust before it can start and spread. That's why I call it a chemical insurance policy. It's the difference between a scratch that stays a scratch and a scratch that becomes a spreading rust stain.

Our Final Color Coat

We use architectural-grade powder coats with built-in UV inhibitors. This isn't a small detail.

You've probably seen older fences or outdoor metal products that look "chalky" — where you can actually wipe your hand across the surface and the color comes off on your skin. That's UV oxidation, and with low-grade powder coat, it can happen in as little as 90 days in direct sun.

Our architectural powder is formulated to resist that degradation for years. I stopped selling to buyers who just want the cheapest option a long time ago — not to be arrogant, but because cheap products lead to bad experiences, and bad experiences aren't something I want associated with our family's name. If you're investing in your home, you deserve a product that will still look good when your kids are grown.

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We're a Full-Service Weld and Finish Shop

One more thing worth mentioning: we're not just a laser cutting operation. We're a full fabrication shop.

That means we can weld steel bar frames and tube borders directly onto your panels for added rigidity. It means we fabricate matching fence posts, brackets, and hardware. And because everything gets finished together in our shop at the same time, your posts, panels, and hardware all come out in the exact same color — no mismatched finishes, no guessing.

As a former manufacturing engineer, I've always believed that good design should also be efficient to install. Our welded steel frames let you screw a panel directly into your posts and be done with it — no custom wood framing required for each section. It saves time. It looks cleaner. And it lasts longer.

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In Closing

You've made it to the end — which tells me you care about doing this right. I respect that.

We are a small shop. It's me and my family, and a small crew of people we trust. We don't have a massive marketing budget or a warehouse full of pre-made inventory. What we have is decades of experience, a laser that runs on craftsmanship as much as electricity, and a genuine commitment to sending you something we'd be proud to put on our own home.

When you order from us, you're not just buying a piece of cut metal. You're buying the knowledge of what gauge to use, which steel to source, how to prep a surface, why zinc matters, and how to make a finish that outlasts the fence posts holding it up.

I hope this gave you a clear picture of what goes into our work. If you have questions — about sizing, materials, custom work, anything — please reach out. We're real people, and we genuinely love hearing from our customers.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

God Bless,

— Chuck and the Madison Iron and Wood Family
📞 (812) 748-2021 | www.madisonironandwood.com

 

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