ARMOURDALE · KANSAS CITY, KANSAS
My father opened this shop in 1971. We are on job 6,214.
Ironline is a welding and fabrication shop at 1240 Kansas Avenue. We build handrails, gates, and trailer frames, we repair the ones you already have, and every job over five hundred dollars gets a page in the same ledger my father started. The drawing goes on the left and the money goes on the right.
Or text a photo of the job to that number. It saves us both a trip.
MON TO FRI 7:00 TO 5:00 · SAT BY ARRANGEMENT · AWS D1.1 CERTIFIED
Work and rates
Most shops will not put a number on a website. Here are ours.
They move with the price of steel, but not by much, and never after we have quoted your job. The price I quote is the price.
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Handrails and stair rails
$110 / LIN FT INSTALLEDPorch rails, stair rails, grab rails. We measure on site before quoting, because your steps are not square and neither are anyone else's. Welded at every picket, set in one visit, thirty-six inches to code.
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Gates and security doors
WALK GATES FROM $650Driveway pairs from $2,600, hung on posts we set ourselves. A straight gate on a leaning post is still a leaning gate. Pickets are solid bar, not tube, and the gate will outlast the house.
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Trailer repair and rebuilds
TONGUES USUALLY $300 TO $600Cracked tongues, rotted crossmembers, new decks and ramps, up to 14,000 GVWR. If your tongue has a crack in it, stop towing it. I mean today. Bring it in and worst case I tell you it is not worth fixing, and that costs you nothing.
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Structural and heavy repair
QUOTED FROM DRAWINGSBeams, lintels, columns, dock plates, bollards. Certified stick and flux-core for anything an engineer or an inspector will look at, with the weld log in your job's page of the book.
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Mobile welding
$145 / HR, 2 HR MINThe truck carries a Bobcat 260 and two hundred feet of lead. Portal to portal: the clock starts when it leaves Kansas Avenue and stops when it is back. Farm equipment, docks, rails already in the ground.
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One-off fabrication
SHOP RATE $95 / HR + STEELBrackets, stands, machine bases, the part nobody sells anymore. Bring the broken original or a sketch. We draw it in the book before we build it, and you approve the drawing before we cut.
From the book
Every job over five hundred dollars gets a page in the book.
My father wrote job 1 in the same kind of ledger in 1971. I see no reason to change the system. Two pages from this summer, photographed flat on the layout table and redrawn clean so you can read them.
The shop
Two bays on Kansas Avenue, and the same green office my father painted.
Ironline is Pete Vukovich, Ray Ledezma, and on Tuesdays, Dana, who does the books and has been telling Pete to post more pictures since 2016. Pete started sweeping this floor at twelve and ran his first bead at fourteen, on a piece of scrap his father kept. It still hangs by the office door.
Bay one is repair. Trailers, equipment, anything that rolls or gets carried in. Bay two is fabrication, with a layout table and enough clear floor to weld a sixteen foot gate leaf flat, which is the only way a gate leaf comes out flat. Ray does the stainless and the Tig work because his beads are prettier than Pete's. Pete taught him, so he takes partial credit.
Come by with your part. If we are welding, you will wait ten minutes. There is coffee. It is not good coffee, but it is hot.
We do not do exhaust work. Munoz on 10th Street does, and he is good.
On the floor
- Miller Syncrowave 350 Tig
- Two Lincoln Power Mig 360s
- Bobcat 260 on the truck
- Edwards 55 ton ironworker
- 7 x 12 horizontal bandsaw
- 2 ton bridge crane, bay two
- Layout table, 5 x 10 ft
What we weld
- Mild steel to 1 in plate
- Stainless, Tig and Mig
- Aluminum to 1/2 in
- Cast iron repair, by the piece
How a job runs
I run a job the way my father ran one, with one improvement. You get photos now.
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You send the job
Call, or text photos with a tape measure somewhere in the frame. For rails and gates we come out and measure ourselves before quoting. Can it come to the shop instead? Most things can, and shop work is cheaper than truck work.
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You get a page in the book
The drawing goes on the left and the money goes on the right, and you get a copy of both before we cut steel. The total is the total. If we find rot or cracked welds we did not quote, we stop and call you before touching them.
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We build it, then you pay
Welds ground where they show, left proud where strength matters, everything primed before it leaves. You get photos before pickup or install. Cash, check, or card, when you are satisfied. That policy is older than Pete.
Where the truck goes
Shop work comes from everywhere. The truck runs both sides of the state line.
Roughly a thirty minute ring around Armourdale: both Kansas Cities, Turner, Argentine, Rosedale, Bonner Springs, Shawnee, Merriam, Overland Park, Riverside, and the towns between. Farther out is fine for a day's work. The clock starts when the truck leaves Kansas Avenue and stops when it is back, and you will see both times on your page in the book.
The photograph behind this is the Santa Fe yard at Kansas City, Kansas, taken at night in March of 1943. Marko welded in the railroad shops before he opened this one. Argentine yard is eleven minutes from our door, and we still work for people who work there.
Call the shop
Phone is how jobs start here. If it goes to voicemail, we are under a hood.
What the voicemail says
"You have reached Ironline Welding. We are probably welding. Leave the address and what broke, and I will call you back this evening. If it is a rail or a gate, a photo texted to this number saves us both a trip."
He means it about the evening. Quotes usually come back the same day, in writing, and the price he quotes is the price.