Panel and Gate Jig

[Shield Arc]

Only thing I can think of is maybe build a grid out of unistrut. And use hold down toggles, and unistrut pipe clamps where you can.
Problem with jigs, is generally they're time consuming to build, so you have to have enough product to build to justify the labor, and materials.
My next thought is an Acorn table.

McMaster-Carr

McMaster-Carr

Acorn Welding Table

 

[charlz]

As Sheild Arc notes they are pretty time consuming to build so how much is a 'bunch' of panels/gates? Not to mention expense of material, clamps etc that you may never use again.

Something else to think about is do you have the equipment to quickly cut a bunch of 20' sticks of tubing into the right lengths, cope them (assuming you are using round tubing) then clean and paint?

Sometimes it is just worth the extra money to drag the trailer down to the local farm and ranch supply place, load up some finished product and be done with it

 

[flyerdan]

Or carefully build the first one and then tack small pieces of metal to it that provide alignment for the pieces of subsequent ones. Then when you are done knock off and grind down where the tabs were. This would save you from having to figure out what to do with a full-size jig when you are all done.

That's exactly what I'd do when I had to do multiples of the same item, had a coffee can of 2" angle iron pieces for stops. Another thing that I built that was quite handy was a 30-60-90 triangle out of 1.5" square tube, sent it out with a powder coat run so the weld spatter wouldn't stick. Since most gates were square (although we did a fair number of bias gates as well), clamping my square in one corner would pretty much true them up, except for the really long ones.

 

[cerkac]

The unistrut is a great idea. Maybe I could build a frame out of square tubing and then use your idea of making a grid out of the unistrut. Not sure the cost of the unistrut but its giving me some ideas.

I now wonder if I could build a frame out of square tubing and then attach some angle to create something similar to the unistrut grid. I could use carriage bolts to slide up and down the grid and tighten small pieces of angle as the tabs to layout/clamp the gates and panels.

I've got about 25-30 panels and 10 bow gates or so to build for now. And I could see building more down the road, seems like you never have enough portable panels. Gates and panels at the local farm supply just don't hold up to much abuse. I've got some downtime before calving starts in Feb. to build the jig, but some of the panels I need to get built are for calving pens so I do need to get started.

Thanks for all the ideas.

 

[Shield Arc]

Shop around, I always found McMaster-Carr to be awfully high priced, but they seem to have everything. Check out your local industrial electrical supply house for unistrut. You can also buy spring backed nuts for the unistrut.

McMaster-Carr

 

[cerkac]

I found this jig this morning when I was searching around the internet. The picture is from a place that fabricates gates. Probably overly built for my needs but looks very functional. I'm going to call a few local electrical supply company's as suggested to see what I can get some unistrut for. Thanks again.

Kevin