Here is a photo of an antique iron bed we converted from it’s original antique double size, to todays modern king size. As you can see in the photo, tubing was added to the original double size bed to achieve the needed additional width for a modern king size mattress. When the tubing is welded into place and the additional vertical iron rods have also been welded in place, it’s then necessary to pour castings around the welds, just as was done back in the 1800’s, to cover all the connecting joints. Iron beds are named such, not because of the tubing, but because of the castings which were poured with very hot molten iron…..(1175 to 1290 degrees C.) Today we use aluminum because of the cost and the much lower temp. needed to melt Aluminum, 660 degrees C, nearly half as much as cast iron.
Look close and you can see the additional tubing , rods and castings that were added to this antique bed. The client wanted the “finish”, to remain the same. So we just touched up the new material, we added ,so it would blend with and look exactly like the old distressed finish this bed had accumulated in the past 200 years.
Take note how we try and maintain the original beds design…..only adding that which we feel would have been there, had the foundry originally offered antique iron beds in king size. We like to think redesigning should be left to those who make reproductions and tend to inject their own design sense. Our goal is to only continue the design of the original bed.
