Anyone know anything about metal filler?

[BelfastSmile]

We're moving house next week, and the new house has a carport with lovely iron (I assume) gates, each of which has a metal plate installed with the name and logo of a football team. Absolutely hideous.

DH supports a different team and can't countenance the idea of having the logo of another team on the gates. He planned to borrow some kind of bolt cutters or something to cut the plates out, but I think that'll make a complete mess (there will be loose bits of iron left). His second idea was to replace the gates, but that's going to be really expensive, and they are nice gates apart from these hideous plates.

The plates are basically flat circles with the team logo cut out of them, so my next idea was that maybe we could get something to kind of fill in the gaps and return them to just being plain circles again (and then paint over them).

Does anything like that exist? I think what I'm imagining is some kind of polyfilla, but for metal. So basically I could put loads of this stuff in the gaps, sand it down, and it would be fine.

Anyone have any other ideas?

How is the metal plate attached to the gates?

I assume it's welded on. The gate has vertical bars, spaces a few inches apart, so the bars have been cut and the circular plate has been slotted in (does that make sense?).

Could you get metal plates in same size and shape welded on top of the existing metal plate?

Might be easier to stick a same sized metal plate over them with some kind of bonding resin. Not sure if epoxy works on metal, don’t see why not though

Google “sheet metal fabricator” in your area. I had a pice cut for a magnetic board I was making, it cost about £12

Find a local steel fabricators, perhaps the people who made the gate in the first place, (you could ask the vendors) they will be able to replace the panel with a different decoration. In the mean time you could attach a plywood circle with a few coats of exterior paint.

Good ideas! Thank you! Now that I think about it, I reckon my uncle might have a mate who does stuff with metal, so I could see whether he could make me some circles!

Yeah try "the gates are amazing, wherever did you get them?" with the vendors.