The questions people ask before they ring.

A description of the job, roughly how much of it there is, and a couple of photos. That’s enough for most things. If it’s more complex, or we’d want to see it before we commit to a number, we’ll say so.

Most jobs we can price from photos. Where we can price confidently from what you send, you get a quote; where we can’t, you get an estimate and we firm it up on the day or after a visit. Quotes and estimates from photos are free. If a job needs a site visit before we can quote it, we’ll tell you whether there’s a charge for the visit before we come.

You’ll get an email straight away confirming we’ve received your enquiry. Kira will reply with what we’d do and a price or an estimate within one business day.

Yes. One gate, one set of wheels, one bracket. Small items come to us; anything fixed or large we come to. Minimum charges apply and are shown on the quote.

Both.

Not a useful one. What a job costs depends mostly on the time it takes, and that depends on the material, what’s on it and how much of it there is. A photo and a rough size get you a real number quickly, so that’s the better path.

Mostly by the time it takes on the tool, plus the costs that go with the job: consumables, transport if we’re collecting, hire where a job needs gear we don’t carry every day. Some jobs are quoted per item (a set of wheels), some per square metre (a wall or a floor), some as a lump sum. The quote says which, and what’s included.

We stop and talk to you. Hidden rust under paint, extra layers, a repair somebody filled over: when we find something the quote didn’t cover, you get a call with the options before we go any further. Nothing beyond the quote is done without your say-so.

30 days.

Yes, 50% of the quoted amount to book the job, and the balance on completion.

Bank transfer, which is what we’d prefer. We can take card, with a surcharge.

Moving a booking costs nothing if you give us notice. For work scheduled on site, a cancellation the day before, or on the day, carries a $350 stand-down charge, because that day can’t be filled. For items you were bringing to us, there’s no charge.

Paint, primer and powder coat. Rust, mill scale and oxide. Grease, oil, wax and years of grime. Soot and fire residue. Mould, lichen and biological growth. Graffiti, ink and staining from hard surfaces.

It can’t put metal back: if rust has gone through, that’s a repair, not a clean. It can’t reach where the light can’t, so the inside of a box section or a chassis rail is only reachable through openings. On porous stone it can’t always lift pigment that has soaked in below the surface without taking stone with it, and we’ll show you that on the test area rather than promise otherwise.

Not when it’s set for the material, which is why every job starts with a test area. Set too high, a laser will mark aluminium or glaze sandstone; set correctly, it takes the layer and stops. Getting that setting right is the skill you’re paying for.

No. Nothing hits the metal and very little heat goes into it, so sheet stays flat. Heat only becomes a consideration on heavy removal from thick material, and we manage it there.

Yes, all of them, at the right setting. Aluminium and alloy are where the laser has its biggest advantage over blasting, which pits and peens them.

Timber, yes, with a test first: some species darken under the beam and some coatings behave differently, so we check a small area before doing the rest. Fibreglass and gelcoat depend on the coating and the laminate under it; send a photo and ask, and we’ll test before we quote. If your material isn’t mentioned anywhere on this site, the answer is the same: send a photo.

Yes. The zinc layer comes off the same way a coating does, which is useful before welding or where a galvanised finish has failed. Bear in mind that once it’s off, the steel underneath needs protecting again, so we’ll talk through what’s going on afterwards before we take it off.

Yes. The beam follows the shape, so castings, wheels and engraved surfaces come out with their detail intact rather than softened.

Because one doesn’t do everything. The pulsed unit (500 W) is the precise one: heritage stone, cast iron, thin sheet, alloy, threads, moulds and anything that has to come out exactly as it went in. The continuous-wave unit (2 kW) is the fast one, for heavy rust, scale and thick coatings on robust steel. We choose from your photo and confirm on the test area. You don’t need to know which one you need.

It comes off the laser clean, dry and free of oil and grease, with nothing driven into it, which is a better start than blasting gives you. We still recommend a wipe with wax-and-grease remover immediately before priming, because that’s good practice on any bare metal, and bare steel should be primed soon rather than left in a humid shed. On very smooth surfaces a light scuff helps a coating key in, and we can do that.

No residue and no dust. There’s a faint burnt smell at the head while it runs, which the extraction captures; it doesn’t linger.

No. You can hold a conversation next to it. It’s a lot quieter than grinding, sanding or blasting.

Yes.

Yes. Set correctly it removes the release agent, residue or oxide and nothing else. Dimensions don’t change and machined faces aren’t touched.

Yes, on most hard surfaces. Soot comes off masonry, steel and concrete without water or chemicals.

On bare stone, brick, render or concrete, yes, and that’s the right tool for it: no solvent, no pressure washing, no sandblast scar. On a painted wall the tag comes off with the paint underneath it, which makes it a repaint rather than a clean, and we’ll say so from the photo.

The laser for anything with detail, threads, thin sections or alloy, anything that has to stay in place, and anything where grit, water or chemicals aren’t allowed. Blasting for heavy scale and thick coatings on robust steel, where speed matters more than finesse. Per hour the laser can cost more; per job it often doesn’t, because there’s no masking of everything around it, no grit to clean out of every seam afterwards and no rework. Send a photo and we’ll tell you which and why.

Yes, to eyes. It’s a Class 4 laser, and most of its light is in a wavelength you can’t see, so it doesn’t look as dangerous as it is. That’s why it’s run inside an exclusion zone with screens, and everyone inside the zone wears laser-rated eyewear. Outside the zone you’re safe.

Only inside the exclusion zone, and nobody is inside it unless we’ve invited them and handed them the right glasses.

Joshua acts as laser safety officer on every job: the zone, the screens, the eyewear and the sign-off that it’s safe to start. We’ve been trained on the equipment we run and hold white cards for construction sites.

Whatever was on the surface, turned into fine particulate: paint, oxide, grease. It’s captured at the head and run through three-stage filtration (water, carbon, HEPA) rather than released into the room.

Yes, with the extraction running and the right protection. If a coating is old enough to be lead-based we test it first and tell you, and the captured waste is disposed of as hazardous rather than binned.

No. If we find something that could be asbestos, we stop and refer you to a licensed specialist.