Decorative Metal

Looking through the latest issue of The Fabricator I saw an add for TwistedBars.com. As the name implies, they do sell twisted rod, but they also sell a variety of other products as well; such as embossed, hammered, birdcages (baskets, spheres and oblongs), finals (ends, cut silhouettes, and wood grained metal. They can do steel, aluminium, copper, and brass. The wood grained piece caught my eye because there have certainly been times in the past where the designer wanted the look of wood, but the scenery needed the structural support of steel. While paint can do wonders, wood faking steel and vise versa never quite work. But, it the steel had a wood grained texture - perhaps this would be a suitable alternative in those situations.