Hi, I'm trying to find a UK supplier for a metal capping to go over a
7x7in 4 way pointed gate post, to a) finish it off and b) stop water pouring into the checks forming in the top of the post. I would like either a plain old galvanised finish or possibly copper (if its not too ludicrously expensive). It seems that there are a few US suppliers for such items (see
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for an idea of what I'm after - but minus the wood bit!), but cant find anyone in the UK that does this size. I could have it made I guess - but who would do such a small job at a reasonable price??!
Is this possible to do at home with no experience ;-) If so how would you go about it?
Lead is typically used for such a fitting, though I'd reckon that copper could be just as good, though a bit harder to get fitted correctly. I doubt there are suppliers that make such a thing, as all fence posts are marginally different sizes, you'd need to buy a sheet, and bend/hammer it into shape. Alan.
I provided protection to wooden posts in a similar situation, using Flashband. Unlike copper nobody will want to nick it. Warming gently helps adhesion and I use a wallpaper edge roller to smooth it down.
You can get lead flashing from a builders merchant but it comes in fairly long rolls so is quite expensive. If you can find a house being demolished or altered, you may be able to get a small amount. You could use copper. An old hot water cylinder is a good source of thin copper sheet.
Lead can be bought from builders yards but they sell in roll quantities. You may find some flashing from a demolition site that would do. An old hot water cylinder would provide enough copper.
As others have noted, if it's out in the street, the kids will have it off whatever you do: I spent time making nice wooden caps to go over our flat topped posts and held them down with 4 long stainless screws each, from which I drilled the screwdriver lugs. Soon all were split from the posts by screwdrivers banged into the wood and heaving. Natural inclination would have been to make some stainless or Al caps from old saucepans, but I could not figure a way to prevent their removal, so never got round to it.
If your posts are in a more secure place, lead would be the easiest to bend around your, presumably pyramidally pointed efforts (then copper, then Al), but you would need something similarly pointy, and hard, to form them on (If you have a good bench vice and a selection of cold chisels or other bits of pointed metal with flat sides, that you can use for 'anvils' to form/fold your metal round, you might be able to do it, but getting the edges to meet up nicely would not be easy, I suspect.) and you'd still have to rivet or solder/braze the join.
On the other hand, if you do have some old lead flashing to hand (and it is very handy), and your post is not yet permanently affixed, or you can make a dummy from another bit of wood, you might even be able to cast a cap something like this: get a bucket of damp sand; push your post or dummy into it and withdraw to check it has made a clean impression; make some means of suspending the post or dummy in the impression you have just made, but with a couple of millimetres space around it; melt sufficient small pieces of lead flashing in a stainless saucepan on the cooker hob; scrape off the clagg (who's proper name I should remember from the days I used to make type, but don't...); pour into your mould around the post top. When cool rub down the outside with wet sand after trimming off any odd bits with a decent knife. Don't be tempted to hammer it to shape too much, as this will tend to make it get bigger... When you are satisfied with your efforts, put a jollop of mastic inside for good measure and firm it down on the post. Secure with a clout nail at the bottom of each face for symmetry's sake.
Actually, thinking about those nails, you might be able to simply wrap a suitably shaped bit of lead sheet around the post and clout nail down the overlap and trim. Worth a try if you have the material.
Hmm almost makes me want to have a go myself. [I did have a go recently at making a lead ball, and found it quite a satisfying material to work with. In that instance, I poured some lead into a piece of copper tube and then poked it out to get a cylinder of about the right size. Then simply lightly tapping the edges over and over got it approx ball shaped, and rolling in a plastic pot with wet sand polished it off.]
What inevitable joins? I would make a hollow former and dress the metal to shape as a seamless cap. However, if you want to cut and fold, both copper and lead solder well. OTOH, if you have a big, old-fashioned soldering iron that you stick in a gas flame, you can simply melt lead together at the seams.
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