Great gates!

According to poet Robert Frost, good fences make good neighbors. If you ask Josh Foster, good fences need good gates, and good gates make a good business. He parlayed his welding capability, learned on the family farm as a teenager and refined during his college days, into a fabrication business specializing in gates and similar items.

Once an Apprentice, Now an Entrepreneur

It’s unlikely that any self-respecting farmer or rancher would even think about taking a welding class. This is a skill handed down from a father, uncle, or other mentor, one acquired through demonstration, occasional bits of advice, and a lot of practice. This was Foster’s training, first on the family farm and later when he worked in his college’s Outdoor Department.

“We fabricated benches, fire pits, and all sorts of other things all over the campus,” he said.

After earning a degree in business, he took a job as yard master at a local railyard. It provides a paycheck and benefits, but it’s a part-time gig, usually 20 hours a week or so. Foster balances this with his fabrication business, Big Creek Metal Works in Nampa, Idaho, using the other 50 hours or so per week to fabricate ornamental gates, signs, and similar items.

A Versatility in Skills. The first step in making a good gate is developing a good design, and Foster doesn’t shy away from any of the possibilities today’s technologies afford.

“I can start with a photo, buy clip art, or draw something from scratch, or I can combine these elements,” he said.

Next he works out what materials he needs as far as sheet, bar, tubes, and so on. For the main materials, sheet and plate, he does a lot of work in 10-gauge steel, but the range is from around 16-gauge (0.065 in.) up to ½ in. thick.

He relies on his two plasma machines, Hypertherm models, to do most of the cutting. He has a Powermax65® with an X-Y table for automated cutting and a Powermax600 for manual cutting. The table measures 5 by 10 ft., but its indexing capability lets him process much longer sheets when necessary. His shop is also fortified with a versatile collection of other machines: an ironworker, a brake, a tubing bender, and a sheet roller.

After all of the parts are cut and formed, it’s a matter of welding and grinding, then a little cleanup and preparing the project for shipment to a powder-coater.

A Versatility in Projects. Foster’s forte is Western-themed gates, but his work is essentially unlimited in scope. Interested in dressing up your balcony? Foster makes balcony panels in standard and custom designs. Need a sign for your business? He can handle that. He also makes a lot of artistic pieces for indoor or outdoor display. He even netted a contract from ESPN to make a series of signs that display the names of National Football League team names. Like to fish? He makes plenty of silhouettes of fish and fishermen. Mountain scenes, desert scenes, farm scenes ocean scenes—Foster has something for nearly everyone. As Foster noted on his website, “The photos on this website represent only a few drops in the ocean of possibilities.”

Big Creek Metal Works specializes in Western-themed gates and signs, but it isn’t limited to these products. It also makes balcony panels, garden items, and artwork from sheet metal, tubing, and bar stock.

The variety of projects and customers make this a steady business, Foster noted, so thus far he hasn’t had to deal with a downturn. A bigger issue is that, on occasion, orders come in faster than he can make them and ship them. Foster isn’t worried, though, because his capacity is growing. So far the largest gate he made measured 30 ft. long, but he is completing a new shop that will allow him to make even longer gates, if necessary. As far as labor, he has that covered too. His oldest son is about the same age that he was when he learned to weld, and he already has been helping out around the shop.

Big Creek Metal Works, 208-369-0021, www.big creekmetalworks.com