“Will it rust?” is the question we are asked most, and it deserves a straight answer rather than a marketing one. Steel rusts. What stops it is the coating, how the piece is mounted, and where you live.
The honest answer
Every piece we cut is steel, powder-coated. Powder coating is not paint: the powder is applied electrostatically and then baked, so it fuses into a continuous shell rather than sitting on the surface as a film. It is the same process and the same class of coating used on garden furniture, bike frames and balcony railings.
That shell is what keeps the water off the steel. Intact, it will hold for years outdoors. Breached — a deep scratch to bare metal, a drilled hole left unsealed — and rust will start at the breach and creep under the coating from there.
So: our pieces are suitable outdoors, and the thing that decides how long they last is whether the coating stays intact and whether water can sit against them.
Mounting: the part that actually matters
Flush against a wall is the mistake. Water wicks into the gap, sits there, and never dries. Every medium and large piece we ship hangs on standoff bolts that hold the steel 15 mm off the wall — that gap exists for the shadow indoors and for drainage outdoors, and it is the single most important thing about hanging a piece outside.
Three more things, in order of how much they matter:
- Do not trap it. Under a tight pergola slat or behind a dense climbing plant, the piece stays wet after rain. Open air dries; enclosed damp does not.
- Use the supplied hardware. Substituting plain steel screws puts an uncoated metal in contact with a coated one, and the screw will bleed rust down the piece long before the piece itself has a problem.
- Do not drill it. Every fixing hole is cut before coating, so the coating wraps the hole edge. A hole drilled afterwards is bare steel.
Where you live
Sheltered — covered porch, balcony with a roof, carport: no special measures. This is effectively indoor use with temperature swings.
Exposed inland — garden wall, fence, exposed patio: fine. Rinse the dust off when you clean the windows.
Coastal: salt is the accelerant, not the rain. Rinse with fresh water two or three times a year — a hose, not a pressure washer — and dry it. That is the entire maintenance routine, and it is what makes the difference between a coastal piece lasting years and lasting a season.
Hard freeze / snow load: the steel does not care about cold. Check that snow cannot pile up in a design with large horizontal cut-outs; brush it out rather than letting it melt and refreeze in place.
Pool and hot tub surrounds: treat as coastal. Chlorine vapour behaves like salt.
Which finishes go outside best
All five are the same coating specification and all five go outdoors. Two practical differences:
- Black holds its appearance longest in strong sun. It is the finish we would choose for a south-facing wall.
- Gold and bronze have a metallic pigment in the coat. Outdoors in constant direct sun over years they will dull a little more visibly than black or white — this is a change in sheen, not a failure of the coating.
The finish guide shows all five photographed on the same design.
What goes outside most
Nature and mountain pieces are the obvious garden choice — the mountain landscape and forest trees on a fence read as an extension of the garden. Birds are the other: a flock spread across a large fence panel is the arrangement people send us photographs of most. For prayer gardens and church exteriors, the three crosses at 90 cm and above.
If it does get damaged
A scratch through to bare metal will rust. Catch it early: clean the spot, let it dry, and cover it with any exterior-grade metal touch-up paint in a matching colour. That stops the creep. A piece that has been left damaged for a season may show a stain that will not clean off — the coating is fine, the steel underneath is not.
Materials and care has the cleaning routine for indoors and out. Every piece is cut to order in 3–5 business days and ships free worldwide, duties included to the US, EU and UK.
