Gate building

[EddieWalker]

All Steel Bodied Sealed Roller Bearing Hinge. 2000 lb. Weight Capacity,

This is one of my VERY FAVORITE stores to buy stuff from. They are extremly fast, very competitive on their prices and they have EVERYTHING!!!!!:thumbsup::thumbsup:

Eddie

 

[boner58]

I've found those to be great for non-motorized gates. They allow for misalignment which can happen. They life forever if the gate is used often and they are cheap to make. You just have to use a little imagination when it comes to design.

Why do you stagger the supports for the gates, in one post you called it a truss effect. Is there a method to know how many and where to place them?

 

[crash325]

Not a nice pretty gate like some folks have built. Will have to work on that some day.

Sort of a "No Hinges" gate. Black pipe is 1/8"+ thick and just under 6" ID. Gate back pipe is standard water pipe with about 1/8" clearance. Black pipe & RR tie are 2' into the ground and concreted. It's almost 5 years old and every year or 2 it gets a little oil. Latch side is pretty simple and just flips up. Could be built a lot heavier and / or make 2 or 3 of them. Gate is 11.5' wide, but could be any length.

Some fool ran into the back side of the gate a few months back. Bent the cross pipe almost 1' out of straight. It loosened the latch post up a little, but all else held tight.

 

[rjmack]

I've been away, I check the site every day, because of current interests, the housing for the poor using recycled plastics.

In July I broke my right hand, stupid move on my part. Then about five weeks ago I busted up my left shoulder in a fall on a plow. Tuesday I go in for surgery. I have a complete tear of one tendon from the rotator cuff and a large tear of another. They won't know until they get in there whether they're going to reattach it too.

My options are to have about thirty percent use of my left arm above my ribs and a lot of pain or surgery. I'm going with surgery. Some might see 63 as too old to plan on doing what I do but then others will see 63 as too young to quit.

The good things is I'm in good health, no heart problems, diabetes, etc. I take no medicines, no alcohol or drug use, and I get a fair amount of exercise. The surgery is supposed to be its own kind of hades but the good thing is this is only the second surgery of my life. The first was for tonsils removal about thirty years ago.

I take some satisfaction in my only visits to the docs involves injuries, still being stupid after all of these years.

i know the feeling... this is my left hand today... overall, 3 surgeries in 3 months... oh well, nothing lasts forever i guess. can't help but wonder what kind of shape i'll be in when i'm 63 (11 years).

 

[EddieWalker]

Why do you stagger the supports for the gates, in one post you called it a truss effect. Is there a method to know how many and where to place them?

All buildings are held in place by the triangle. It is where you get your strength. Your house would fall down withou the triangle disigned into the corners of your walls. Tables and chairs have them built into the legs to hold them steady, and a truss relies on the ablity of a triangle to lock everything into position to hold it in place. A truss is only as strong as the materials used.

A gate is a free spaning truss without very much load. Putting a brace from one corner to the other will give it all the strength that it needs if you use the proper materials.

You can use lighter materials and have more triangles, or heavier, stronger materials and less bracing.

Eddie

 

[boner58]

All buildings are held in place by the triangle. It is where you get your strength. Your house would fall down withou the triangle disigned into the corners of your walls. Tables and chairs have them built into the legs to hold them steady, and a truss relies on the ablity of a triangle to lock everything into position to hold it in place. A truss is only as strong as the materials used.

A gate is a free spaning truss without very much load. Putting a brace from one corner to the other will give it all the strength that it needs if you use the proper materials.

You can use lighter materials and have more triangles, or heavier, stronger materials and less bracing.

Eddie

When looking at Harvs gates he does not use triangles. I do understand the triangle aspect though.

 

[rjmack]

When looking at Harvs gates he does not use triangles.

there is always a diagonal brace. it may not be evident in the design, but it is there. consider the cross-section of the material from the perspective of a diagonal brace.:thumbsup:

 

[EddieWalker]

You don't always see the triangle, but it's there, or addional bracing of some sort has to be used to make up for the loss of strngth the triangle creates. In my line of work, sheeting is used to replace the triangle in the corners of a building. A 4x8 sheet of OSB or other siding is really a solid triangle on top and bottom!!!! Just draw an imaginary line from oposite corners and you have two very strong triangles. It is those angles that give the building it's strength!!!

When designing anything, start out with the basic principle, then figure out ways to make it worth without what you don't like. If you remove the diagnal brace, then you need to compensate for what it does with other types of bracing. If you don't get it right, it will fail. Most people either fail, or over build with more then they need. The reason you hire an engineer is that they can figure it out with the least amount of materials to get the maximum needed strength needed. For a gate, you don't need this, but you have to be careful not to go too far in either direction.

Eddie

 

[rjmack]

You don't always see the triangle, but it's there

looks like we were thinking the same thing while we were typing at the same time.:laughing:

one other thing a lot of people overlook when they begin working with steel, is that it really behaves a lot like spaghetti. cold/brittle or hot/slobbery (?) the point being that structural steel will certainly flex under predictable conditions and it is usually a good idea to consider that during the preliminary design (headscratching) phase.

 

[Shield Arc]

headscratching phase.

I'm usually in that phase half way through the project. :laughing: