Way back in March before the lockdown, we started the path edging, on our current project. The designer and client had agreed on Corten (aka cor-ten, or weathering steel) as the material. We have used Corten previously, but never as a divider like this. We have used it before on many water features, and ornaments, to great effect. It’s a very good material, which is designed to rust under the great British weather conditions. When the steel corrodes, the rust forms a sealed coating, which protects it further from the elements. The protective layer is no worse than paint or a powder coat, and it also repairs itself if it is ever scratched or chipped. When we looked into buying a product for this application, we found that handful of companies that we have used before for aluminium edging, also make a corten version. As we needed nearly 200m, we were taken quite back by the overall price, so decided to see if we could manufacture our own for this purpose. The Corten is available to buy in sheets, so purchased the sheets at 2mm thick, and had them cut up into 100mm (4 inch) strips. We also had some 25mm x 4mm pegs cut, and we joined the strips to the pegs with tek screws. The idea of using tek screws, was because they self drill through steel, saving is a lot of pre drilling. Making the edging ourselves save us approximately 40% on the overall cost, so was definitely worth our while. At this point in time, we have just a few more strips to put down, and then we can spread the toppings over the paths and driveway. Once the job is fully completed I will post pictures of the finished project, so keep an eye out for that in the next few weeks.
Here is a picture of a corten prefabricated self contained water feature we tested for a client. It also had LED lights which lit up the water curtain. It still had quite a way to go before it was rusted up fully. This feature was actually very reasonably priced, and incredibly easy to instal.
Here is a corten bowl water feature and focal point we installed in an aluminium raised flower bed. Obviously the soil was added after these pictures were taken.
As usual, any questions feel free to ask. Thank you for your interest.