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Materials — steel frames

Eight ways to finish
a steel staircase.

The frame is welded steel. What it looks like afterwards is a separate decision — and it is the one that shapes the drawings, the programme and the price. This is every route we build, with the constraints stated plainly.

01 — Read this first

The finish decides how
the stair is built.

Most people choose a finish at the end. On a staircase, that is backwards. Half of these finishes go on after the frame is welded. The other half go on before assembly — which means the stair cannot be welded at all, and has to be drawn from the first sketch as something that bolts together.

Choosing between those two families is the real decision. Everything else is taste.

Family AFinished after welding

Powder coat · automotive 2K · liquid metal · oxide patina · hand-applied paint

The frame is welded, ground back and dressed as one piece, then finished. Welds disappear. There are no panel joints anywhere on the stair — the surface runs unbroken along a stringer, round a helical twist, into a corner.

Any geometry we can weld, we can finish this way. Site damage is repairable. If a stair is too long to travel or too long for the coater's oven, it arrives in sections and gets welded on site — and that weld is then made good by hand.

Two of them go further. Liquid metal and oxide patina are applied cold, after the stair is standing, so the site welds disappear along with everything else. That is the reason to choose them on a stair too large to finish in the workshop.

Family BFinished before assembly

PVD stainless · anodised aluminium cladding · pre-finished sheet cladding

The metal is coated or pre-finished flat, then brought to site and assembled. Cutting, grinding or welding after coating destroys the finish locally and cannot be repaired in place.

So the stair must be engineered around concealed mechanical fixings, and every joint line becomes a visible design element that has to be drawn deliberately.

The one rule: if you want PVD or pre-finished cladding, tell us at concept stage, not at finishing stage. By the time a frame is welded, that door is closed.

02 — Narrow it down

Three questions.

Answer these and we will show you which routes are still open. Nothing is ruled out permanently — it just changes what we have to solve.

Where does the stair live?
What should it look like?
What shape is it?
Your shortlist

Choose an answer to begin. With nothing selected, all eight routes are on the table.

This is a starting point, not a specification. Every stair gets a survey, a sample panel and a written finish schedule before anything is cut.

03 — The eight routes

Every finish we build.

Grouped by what the surface actually is: paint, applied metal, or solid metal. Costs are shown as a relative index only — every stair is priced on its own geometry.

Swatches below are indicative tone studies, not photographs. Physical samples on request.

PaintThe surface is a coloured film over steel
01 · Family A — after welding

Polyester powder coat

Dry powder applied electrostatically to the welded frame, then baked. The default finish, and for good reason.

Substrate
Mild steel · galvanised for exterior
Film build
60–80 µm single coat
75–110 µm two-coat
Joints
Only where the frame is too long for the oven
Site repair
Retouched in wet paint

Choose it when

  • The stair is a colour, not a metal — any RAL or BS shade, gloss through dead matt, fine texture
  • You want the best durability for the money; nothing else on this page comes close on that ratio
  • It goes outside: super-durable polyester over hot-dip galvanised steel is the correct GCC terrace build-up
  • The geometry is complex — powder does not care about curvature
  • Unlike PVD or cladding, a site weld is not fatal here. It costs you a retouch, not a redesign

Think twice if

  • The frame is longer than the coater's oven. Then it comes in sections, gets welded on site, and the weld is retouched by hand in matching wet paint. Sound, and close — but on a gloss or metallic colour you will find it if you look. Plan where that joint falls, or keep it under a landing
  • You want a deep metallic or a pearl. Powder metallics exist but read flatter than automotive paint
  • Chips matter. A knock on an arris exposes steel, and the repair will be a shade off on gloss and metallic colours
What drives the cost
Substrate material
Coating or sheet material
Workshop labour
Site labour
Indicative total

Relative index only, one to five. Every stair is priced on its own geometry, length and access.

Wear resistance
Design freedom
Repairability
02 · Family A — after welding

Automotive 2K paint

Epoxy primer, two-pack basecoat and polyurethane clear, sprayed in a booth and polished. A car's paint system, on a staircase.

Substrate
Mild steel, etch or epoxy primed
Film build
~100–150 µm total
primer + base + clear
Joints
None — one piece
Site repair
Blends invisibly

Choose it when

  • You want depth of reflection powder cannot reach — metallics, pearls, candy colours, or a match to a specific car
  • The stair is a centrepiece and the surface will be read at close range under directional light
  • Repairability matters. This is the one system a professional can spot-repair on site and blend so the joint disappears — the entire car refinish trade rests on it
  • The clear coat is the wear layer, and it is hard, chemical-resistant and UV-stable

Think twice if

  • The risk sits in process control, not in the material. A booth, clean air and a skilled sprayer are the whole job — a staircase is a large, awkward, gravity-hostile object next to a car body
  • It wears the way a car wears: fine swirl marks on faces that get touched and wiped, chips on impact edges
  • Labour is high — flatting and polishing after cure is most of the cost
  • We will not commit a project to it without a full-size trial panel and a wear test first
What drives the cost
Substrate material
Coating or sheet material
Workshop labour
Site labour
Indicative total

Relative index only, one to five. Every stair is priced on its own geometry, length and access.

Wear resistance
Design freedom
Repairability
03 · Family A — after welding

Hand-applied paint

Primer and two coats of direct-to-metal enamel, brushed, rolled or sprayed on site. The honest baseline.

Substrate
Mild steel, primed
Film build
80–120 µm
Joints
None — one piece
Site repair
Trivial, and forever

Choose it when

  • The frame is not the feature — back of house, plant rooms, a stair that will be boxed in or carpeted
  • The programme is tight, or the stair has to be welded on site after delivery
  • You may want to change the colour in five years. Nothing else here lets you do that easily

Think twice if

  • Anyone will look at it closely. Brush marks, orange peel and runs on verticals are inherent, not a failure
  • The stair is a hospitality or luxury residential centrepiece — this is not that finish, and we will say so
What drives the cost
Substrate material
Coating or sheet material
Workshop labour
Site labour
Indicative total

Relative index only, one to five. Every stair is priced on its own geometry, length and access.

Wear resistance
Design freedom
Repairability
Applied metalReal metal, worked on the frame itself
04 · Family A — after welding, applied on site

Liquid metal

Real bronze, brass, copper or nickel powder suspended in a two-part resin, sprayed cold — usually on site, once the stair is standing — then cured and worked back like solid metal.

Substrate
Mild steel, lightly primed
Film build
120–150 µm
≈ 0.5 kg/m²
Joints
None — site welds included
Site repair
Excellent, blends invisibly

Choose it when

  • You want bronze or brass on a form that solid metal could never follow — a helical stringer, a twisted spine, a compound curve
  • Because it goes on cold, after the stair is standing, it covers the site welds too. On a stair too large to arrive in one piece, this is the only luxury metal finish that leaves no trace of where it was joined. That is the whole argument
  • Once cured it behaves as metal: linish it to a brushed grain, polish it to a mirror, or chemically patinate it to age it. Then seal with lacquer or wax
  • Weight matters. A bronze read at a fraction of the mass, and no structural allowance for cladding

Think twice if

  • It is a coating, not solid metal. It has real metal at the surface but not the depth — a hard edge strike can go through
  • The applicator is the product. It is hand-worked on site, so consistency across a large stair depends on one pair of hands, one batch, and clean site conditions
  • Site labour is the highest of any finish here. The stair is worked in place, which means protection, extraction, access and a clean handover programme — book the time properly
  • Keep it interior and dry. Pools, wet rooms and terraces need a specified sealer and a maintenance schedule, or a different route entirely
  • Patinated finishes are alive by design — they will keep moving. That is the point, but the client has to want it
What drives the cost
Substrate material
Coating or sheet material
Workshop labour
Site labour
Indicative total

Relative index only, one to five. Every stair is priced on its own geometry, length and access.

Wear resistance
Design freedom
Repairability
05 · Family A — after welding, applied on site

Oxide patina on mild steel

Ordinary mild steel, chemically oxidised to grow a real iron-oxide patina, stopped at the tone we want, burnished back and sealed. The rust is the finish.

Substrate
Mild steel, blasted or degreased
Build-up
Iron oxide grown in the surface
+ wax, oil or lacquer seal
Joints
None — site welds included
Site repair
Reworked in place

Choose it when

  • You want the weathered, warm read of aged steel — deep russet through burnt orange to near-black, varying across a single panel and moving with the light
  • It is genuine. The colour is oxidised steel, not a pigment printed to look like one, so no two stairs are the same
  • The whole process is cold and works on site, so it goes on after the stair is assembled and covers the site welds
  • Material cost is negligible — mild steel and chemistry. The value is entirely in the hand controlling it
  • It can be pushed dark. Held further along, the same family gives a black-oxide gunmetal instead of a russet

Think twice if

  • Interior and dry only. Outdoors, UV breaks down the clear seal within a few years and the patina goes back to being ordinary rust
  • The seal is the whole job. Once the oxide has grown, it is neutralised, dried and sealed — an unsealed patina keeps eating the steel and marks anything it touches
  • A lacquer seal darkens and enriches the colour noticeably; wax and oil keep it lighter and more matt but need renewing on handled surfaces, roughly once a year
  • Mill scale must come off first by grit blasting. Cold-rolled steel takes the patina far more evenly than hot-rolled
  • Two panels will never match exactly, and the client has to want that. We agree the tone against a signed sample panel before we start, not after
What drives the cost
Substrate material
Coating or sheet material
Workshop labour
Site labour
Indicative total

Relative index only, one to five. Every stair is priced on its own geometry, length and access.

Wear resistance
Design freedom
Repairability
Solid metalThe metal is the material — and the stair must bolt together

Two grades of stainless come up, and the difference matters. 304 is everyday stainless — the grade in kitchen sinks and shopping-mall balustrades. Indoors, in air conditioning, it lasts indefinitely. 316 has molybdenum added, which is what stands up to salt and chlorine, so it is the grade for pool stairs, bathrooms, terraces and anything near the sea. It costs noticeably more, and it is not optional in those places — 304 near a pool will bloom rust spots within a year.

06 · Family B — before assembly

Stainless steel with PVD

The frame is built in stainless, polished to its final grain, then coated in a vacuum chamber with a ceramic film. The most durable metal finish available.

Substrate
304 (everyday, indoors)
316 (marine grade, wet or coastal)
Film build
0.3–5 µm
hardness > 2000 HV
Joints
Bolted — welding is not possible
Site repair
None. Damage means replacement

Choose it when

  • Gold, champagne, brass, rose gold, bronze, gunmetal or black, in a film roughly ten times harder than the stainless beneath it and stable under UV
  • Hospitality, high traffic, wet areas and coastal exposure — it outlasts everything else on this page
  • Colour comes from chemistry, not pigment: titanium nitride for gold, zirconium nitride for brass and champagne, titanium carbonitride for rose gold and bronze
  • Fingerprints and cleaning products do not touch it. Soap and water is the entire maintenance regime

Think twice if

  • Welding after coating destroys it. The stair has to be designed from the first sketch to bolt and conceal-fix, with a joint strategy agreed before anything is cut
  • The chamber caps component length, and it runs at 250–450 °C. Confirm the coater's maximum with us before design freeze
  • A few microns hide nothing. Every weld, grind mark and polishing scratch on the substrate reads straight through — substrate preparation is most of the cost
  • Stainless section costs several times mild steel, and not every geometry can be built in it. Helicals and tight twists are difficult and sometimes not possible
  • Available in the UAE and from Foshan. China is competitive on large sheet work, at the price of lead time, freight and a QA visit

A note on the word "plating." This is usually called electroplating in conversation, but the architectural process is PVD — physical vapour deposition, a dry vacuum process. True electroplating in real gold or brass over a nickel strike is possible, and it is softer, wetter and far less wear-resistant. PVD replaced it for building work.

What drives the cost
Substrate material
Coating or sheet material
Workshop labour
Site labour
Indicative total

Relative index only, one to five. Every stair is priced on its own geometry, length and access.

Wear resistance
Design freedom
Repairability
07 · Family B — before assembly

Anodised aluminium cladding

Pre-finished aluminium sheet — natural, champagne, bronze, gold or black, brushed or matt — cut, folded and fixed over the steel frame.

Substrate
Steel frame + aluminium skin
Anodic layer
10–15 µm interior
20–25 µm exterior
Joints
Every panel edge is visible
Site repair
Replace the panel

Choose it when

  • The form is straight, faceted or boxed, and a strict panel grid suits the architecture
  • The anodic layer is grown out of the metal rather than laid on top, so it cannot peel or flake
  • Light, quick on site, no wet trades, and a wide finish range off the shelf
  • Panels are replaceable one at a time if something is damaged later

Think twice if

  • The joints are the design. Every fold needs a corner, a return and a closing line. Panel layout and shadow-gap widths must be drawn — they will be the most visible thing about the stair
  • Aluminium is soft. A dropped tool dents it and a dragged suitcase marks it
  • Tight folds in pre-anodised sheet produce fine hairline crazing across the rolling direction — agree radii with the supplier
  • Tone shifts with grain direction and viewing angle. Fix grain direction early and take every panel from one batch
  • Compound curvature is out. This is not a helical finish
What drives the cost
Substrate material
Coating or sheet material
Workshop labour
Site labour
Indicative total

Relative index only, one to five. Every stair is priced on its own geometry, length and access.

Wear resistance
Design freedom
Repairability
08 · Family B — before assembly

Stainless or brass sheet cladding

The same principle in a harder metal — 1.2–1.5 mm stainless in hairline, mirror or bead-blast, mill finish or PVD-coloured to our specification. Or solid brass and bronze sheet.

Substrate
Steel frame + 1.2–1.5 mm skin
Finish options
Hairline · mirror · bead-blast
PVD colour optional
Joints
Visible, plus larger bend radii
Site repair
Replace the panel

Choose it when

  • Cladding is right but aluminium would dent — public stairs, hospitality, anywhere hands and luggage reach
  • You want the real weight and sound of solid metal underfoot and under hand
  • 316 — the marine grade — with a PVD colour is the correct answer for a pool stair or a coastal terrace
  • Brass and bronze sheet can be left to patinate naturally, or lacquered to hold the new colour

Think twice if

  • Same joint discipline as aluminium, plus stainless springs back and will not take as tight a fold
  • It is heavy. The frame has to carry it and the fixings have to be engineered for it
  • Mirror shows every substrate imperfection and every fingerprint. Hairline and bead-blast are far more forgiving in a home
  • Sequence matters: PVD before folding risks tool marks; PVD after folding needs a coater who takes the assembled size. Settle this before cutting metal
What drives the cost
Substrate material
Coating or sheet material
Workshop labour
Site labour
Indicative total

Relative index only, one to five. Every stair is priced on its own geometry, length and access.

Wear resistance
Design freedom
Repairability
04 — Side by side

All eight, one table.

Comparison of steel frame finishes
Finish Applied Film build Joints Best environment Curved forms Site repair
Powder coatAfter welding60–80 µmSite welds only, retouchedAll, with correct build-upYesWet touch-up
Automotive 2KAfter welding100–150 µmNoneInterior, sheltered exteriorYesBlends invisibly
Hand-applied paintAfter welding80–120 µmNoneInterior, back of houseYesTrivial
Liquid metalOn site, after assembly120–150 µmNoneInterior, dryYesGood
Oxide patinaOn site, after assemblyOxide + sealNoneInterior, dryYesReworked in place
Stainless + PVDBefore assembly0.3–5 µmBoltedAll, including coastalDifficultNone
Anodised aluminiumBefore assembly10–25 µmPanel edgesInterior, exteriorNoSwap panel
Stainless / brass sheetBefore assembly1.2–1.5 mm sheetPanel edgesAll, including coastalNoSwap panel
05 — Dubai & the GCC

Where the stair sits
changes the answer.

Heat, UV, humidity and salt do most of the deciding here. These are the build-ups we specify.

Interior, air-conditioned

Anything on this page works. Choose on appearance, geometry and budget alone. This is where oxide patina and liquid metal belong.

Wet areas & pools

316 stainless — the marine grade — with PVD, or polyester powder over hot-dip galvanised steel. Not oxide patina. Liquid metal only with a specified sealer and an agreed maintenance schedule.

External terrace

Super-durable polyester powder over galvanised steel — a duplex system — holds colour for seven to ten years here. Also 316 with PVD, or anodised aluminium at 25 µm.

Coastal, salt air

316 as a minimum — never 304 here. Within roughly 500 m of breaking surf, specify PVD at 1 µm or more. Expect brown tea staining on any stainless that is not washed down.

UV

PVD and anodising are chemically stable and will not fade. Standard polyester chalks in three to five years of direct sun; super-durable grades are the only ones we quote outdoors.

Thermal movement

Aluminium moves noticeably more than steel across a Dubai summer. On external cladding, joint widths are sized for it rather than drawn to look tight.

06 — Living with it

Care, in one line each.

Powder coat & automotive 2K
Warm water, mild detergent, soft cloth. No solvents, no abrasive pads.
Liquid metal
Dust and dry-buff. Wax refresh to the applicator's schedule. A patinated finish is meant to keep moving.
Oxide patina
Dry cloth only, never a damp one. Re-wax handled surfaces roughly once a year.
PVD stainless
Soap and water. Never abrasive cream, never chlorine-based cleaner.
Anodised aluminium
Neutral pH cleaner only — alkaline cleaners attack the anodic layer.
Brass & bronze sheet
Lacquered: dry cloth. Unlacquered: leave it to patinate, or polish it and accept doing so forever.
07 — Next step

Choose from a sample,
not a screen.

No swatch on a website tells you what a finish does under your light. We make a physical sample panel in the geometry of your stair — the actual section, the actual radius, the actual edge condition — before anything is cut. On finishes we have not built for you before, we make a wear test panel too.

Send us the drawings, or the room. We will come and measure.