When it comes to installing steel and iron fence, many DIY folks think they can’t do it on their own since it requires welding. However, that isn’t the case. Most modern steel and iron fences have brackets and self-tapping screws that allow for easy DIY installation with no welding necessary.

While you can weld our fence panels to our posts if you want, I’d say that less than 1% of our customers do. While it is a strong and bonded connection, there are some downsides to welding as well.

You have to grind all our powder coating and rust protection off to get a clean metal-to-metal weld and unless you are a very talented welder it can be much weaker and uglier connection than using the cast iron brackets and self-tapping screws.

Everyone’s website loves to display beautifully installed photos of fences, but you’re often left wondering how it all goes together and what the actual hardware looks like. So I thought this video might be helpful in giving you a closer look at the hardware components you use to mount your iron fence panels to the post with no welding required.

Before we jump to the fence bracket hardware, let’s take a closer look at all your main iron fence components as a whole and how they work together.

Starting on the left of the image you can see your fence post. That is the part you will cement 2-3ft in ground or bolt to your concrete surface depending on the application.

On the far right we have our fence panel. It’s a small portion of it in the image, but that would be an 8ft wide iron fence panel.

Between those two pieces are the cast iron fence brackets and the self-tapping screw that connects the post and the fence panel together with no welding required.

Many of our competitors use a thin stamped steel bracket that wraps around the post or leaves exposed gaps between panel and post. While they get the job done, the thin stamped steel type of fence bracket is flimsier and gives the fence a much more modular and less elegant look.

As you can see in our photo here, our beefier cast iron fence bracket tucks in line with the fence on one face of the post. The 1in deep bracket also covers your fence rail entirely hiding the connection better.

It’s a small touch on the overall look of the fence, but the rougher and thicker cast iron fence bracket has a much cleaner and more authentic look compared to what many others offer.

Let’s take a look at the two bracket sizes first. Here we have a smaller bracket for our standard-duty Traditional grade iron fence rails. Next to it is the larger bracket for our larger heavy-duty Signature grade fence rails. Both of these are a standard type of bracket that you will use 95% of the time in your installation.

The second type of fence bracket we have are our angle brackets here. The angle brackets are wider in the rear so you can turn or angle your panel off your post. The angle brackets also come in two sizes to match up with our Traditional grade and Signature grade fence rails.

The majority of the time you will be using the standard brackets. The angle brackets are only used if you are trying to curve your panels around the layout and are not making 90 degree turns in corners.

The self-tapping screws are black anodized to match your fence color and have this hex head on top. The hex head just means you can use a standard socket over the top like this for your power tool.

We find these hex heads much more robust and easier to use than screws with a Phillips head that more easily round out or constantly fight your tool.

If we look on the other end of the screw, you can see the self-tapping head. It’s essentially a mini-drill bit on the end of the screws which helps drill your hole into the post. Once the self-tapping screw drills through the post, the threads cut in and allow you to tighten the bracket against the post to hang your panel.

A nice aspect is that the 1in depth of the brackets leaves you some wiggle room on your post spacing.

If you accidentally space your posts slightly too wide apart, you can ‘cheat’ the width by having the railing not pushed all the way in like this. So long as you have at least a 1/2in of rail in the bracket it will hold the panel just fine. If you are worried about the fence panel being shifted left and right and possibly popping out, put a dab of the post cap adhesive inside the bracket and push your railing in. Once it dries it will prevent the panel from shifting left and right.

With its wider base against the post, the angle bracket allows me to angle the panel off the post like this. These angle brackets will allow about 15 degrees of deviation from 90 on your post. If you need more angle than that, there are ways to modify the bracket. We will go into that more in depth in our upcoming video focusing on the iron angle brackets themselves.