Fabrication hub

Custom metal fabrication.

Steel stairs, structures, railings, gates, canopies — and the drawing, weld procedure, and field discipline that hold them together.

“Custom” means the geometry comes from the site, not a catalogue.

Most of what leaves our shop is one-off. A stair pulled to within ±3 mm of a stairwell that nobody framed square. A 7 m canopy that has to land on three pre-cast columns surveyed at different times. A guard run that meets the new BC Building Code 1067 mm height on the landings and 920 mm down the flight — in the same continuous piece of top rail.

Custom fabrication is not a shop with extra creativity. It is a shop that has decided to absorb the field tolerances instead of pretending they do not exist. That choice runs through everything:

Field measure before drawings. We measure the actual opening, slab, and adjacent framing — not the architect’s issued-for-construction set. The drawings get reconciled against reality before any steel is ordered.
Shop drawings reviewed by a Schedule B engineer where the BC Building Code or the AHJ asks for it. On Part 3 buildings that is every time. On Part 9 stairs it depends on the configuration — cantilevered and floating geometries almost always need a structural letter.
CWB-certified welding to CSA W47.1, Division 2. The certification is not a brochure line. It dictates which welders can touch a load-bearing connection, what weld procedures are used, and what inspection a stamped drawing will accept.
Finish strategy chosen before fabrication starts. Hot-dip galvanizing to ASTM A123 changes how a stringer is detailed (drain holes, vent holes, distortion allowance) — adding it after the fact is a $4,000–$8,000 rework on a typical exterior stair. Powder coat on top of galv (a duplex system) needs a sweep-blast and a phosphate pre-treatment to actually bond.

The pages below break those decisions out one at a time — drawing process, materials, welding, finishes, coordination — so an architect, GC, or homeowner can pull just the section they need without reading a brochure to find it.

When custom is the wrong answer

A handful of jobs do not need custom fabrication and we will say so:

Stock spiral kits that fit a standard well opening and do not need a permit beyond the regular building permit.
Off-the-shelf aluminum picket guards on a flat deck with no level changes.
Replacement treads on an existing exterior stair where the structure is sound.

If the project fits one of those, we will point you at the right supplier and skip the quote. Custom shops are expensive; using one where you do not need to is bad value.

Guide index