Seeking adivce buying/building metal lattice-style trellis

[Chuck]

Greetings all!

I just put a deck on my house that comes off the house about 5 feet above a lower deck, and so now I want to fill in the rougly 5 ft high gap between the two decks with some kind of lattice panels up which I can grow vines.

I have been looking online and in catalogs for metal trellises, but they tend to have arched or otherwise shaped tops which wouldn't work too well for my purposes. What I would really like to find are panels just like the regular "rectangular-with-diagonal-slats" panels you can easily find at hardware stores, but in metal (preferably rust-colored) rather than wood.

So if anyone knows where I can find such a product, thanks for the info! However, if I can't find a pre-made version of what I want, I will probably try to build what I want; regarding that possibility, does anyone know where I can order strips or "metal slats" that I can cut to my own needs?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Chuck

[Grumman-581]

Go to the typical welder / metal supply store where the guys who build metal fences go... The 1/2" solid bar stock will last a very long time... It takes a *long* time for 1/2" of solid steel to rust away... The pieces come in 20 ft lengths, but they'll usually cut them down a bit for you if you can't handle that long of a piece in your vehicle or trailer... If you want the slat look instead, go with the 3/4", 1", or 1.5" by 1/8" stock... Clean all the oil off of whatever type of stock that you choose with paint thinner / mineral spirits and weld everything together... Then spray it with some water and leave it out for awhile... It'll have a nice rust 'patina' soon enough... You can expedite this a bit with some acid... If you use acid, you'll want to neutralize it once you get it to your desired patina with some sort of base like baking soda...

[PipeDown]

Between

and you should be able to find everything you need. Both have huge print catalogs too.

If its going to cover with vines quickly (and be hidden), you can do it much more cheaply using rebar from home depot. Copper pipe also makes nice frameworks and if you use epoxy instead of solder to connect the fittings it looks more like solid copper (no solder exposed at joints).

I have also seen ads in the back of mags like pop sci for bending tools used in cast iron working. You will need something if you want to bend twists, curves or spirals.