# Steel Framed Sliding Gate (WIP)



## Fecn (27 Jun 2007)

Well.. I would start this post with an apology for my absence lately, but few of you noticed, and less of you care. Even though I haven't managed to make it into the shop much this year, and haven't posted lately, I haven't been totally idle.

Instead of apologising, I'm going to start this post with a gloat. Look at this pile of lovely Ipe. It's a bit weathered, but nothing that won't clean up with a little sanding. Having cleaned some of it up today, I feel really reather guilty that most of that pile of timber is destined to become part of my garden gate. 






You may recall that back in January, my garden wall blew over..





Well.. eventually the insurance company paid out, but only for the brick built portion. I got a local firm to rebuild the pillars with some rebar down the centres, and I think they did a great job. Since the insurance didn't cover it, I did all the timber parts myself to save on the costs (and it was a serious saving.) - Prooving that I've learned a thing or two from this forum, I made a couple of jigs for fencing - The first jig I made was for positioning the brackets on the brick pillars and the second was for making sure I got the nails from my nailgun at the right height to hit the centre of the Arris rail.






Ever since I first saw our current house, I was of the opinion that it needed a big sliding gate next to the workshop to hide away from the road. I applied for planning permission in May 2006 and got a round of quotes for getting other people to do the work. None of the quotes I got were in the realm of affordable. Whilst I had the builders fixing the wall, I got them to quote for concreting in two gate posts and a girder to act as the gate rail. The price they came up with sounded reasonable, so I got them to go ahead and order the steel.

The steelwork arrived on March 27th - The photos fail to do it justice. When you look at these photos, remember that each of those fence panels is 6ftx6ft. 











The base plate on the support post (the big one) is 10mm thick.





April 4th and the posts are in the ground. The big post is set 3ft down in concrete. 





Since I had some spare conduit knocking around, I was smart enough to get the builders to drop it in the trench before they poured the concrete. The yellow tube is for electricals, the white is for compressed air.





The idea is that the gate will slide down past the side of the shed.





May 5th - Found myself a welder. Welder came to visit and welded down the 20mm round bar upon which the gate will run. Painted all the metal work with a layer of red oxide followed by a layer of black hammer finish. Added some extra conduit for power and data to/from the gate motor unit. Managed to dig away through the concrete so that I could run a piece of conduit underneath the rail for the photocells. 





Ultimately, all the electricals end up in the shed.





June 15th - After a rather long delay with the welders (chap went to Peru for a month) The steel support frame for the gate finally arrived along with the welding guys to sort out all the detailed work. Hooray. 





Here's a test fitting to see if it fits - It does 





Wheels being installed into the underneath of the gate.





June 16th - Gate posts cut to height - Rollers added to the top of support post - Four wheels on underside of gate - Toothed Rail bolted to gate and motor mounted by pillar.. and you can't see any of that detail on the photo, but here's the photo anyway.





June 19th - Welders pretty much finished now - Painted everything with red oxide and then hammer finish. 

June 22nd - Got all the electricals installed. 




This grey box is the gate motor. It has a cog which drives against the toothed rack bolted to the gate. A magent at each end of the rack tells the motor unit when it's reached the open and closed positions.





You need a really big hammer to get the nails on those cable clips through the steel post without bending them. 





June 26th - Here's how things are looking today - I painted the underneath of the gate today. I chocked it away from the support post, strapped it in place and then raised it on a trolley jack until I could get a paintbrush underneath - The whole lot should be rustproof now. The welders are coming back tommorow for a few last minute tweaks, and then it's on with the woodwork for me. Since I'm about to start on the woodworking I figured it was probably about time to post some picks on ukw.





More pics will follow as the wood goes on. - Thanks for looking.


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## Philly (27 Jun 2007)

Fecn
Good to have you back!
Wow - serious gate :shock: Looking forward to seeing the woodwork, now.
Best regards
Philly


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## Paul Chapman (27 Jun 2007)

That's really interesting. Thanks for posting all the pictures. Looks like you've made an excellent job of it so far - look forward to seeing the finished gates.

Cheers :wink: 

Paul


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## wizer (27 Jun 2007)

very clever, well done. Can't wait to see the wood go on it.


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## woodbloke (27 Jun 2007)

Looking very good so far, finished gates should be good - Rob


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## Mike Saville (27 Jun 2007)

Looking good. If only there were more hours in the day perhaps I could consider doing some metalwork as well :shock:


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## Dave S (27 Jun 2007)

That's impressive.
Looking forward to seeing the final result  

Dave


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## jasonB (27 Jun 2007)

I saw the posts on the drive when I passed the other day thought it looked like you were fitting gates, will have a driveby to see what progress is like.

Jason (not far from you)


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## PowerTool (27 Jun 2007)

Nice pictures,nice project  

Good luck with the rest of it.

Andrew


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## DomValente (27 Jun 2007)

Very nice.
You should remove all that loose rubble and any small stones from near the guide rail, when it rains the smaller stones *will *jam the gate.

Dom


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## Fecn (28 Jun 2007)

I managed to get a bunch more work done today, but nothing that really looks too good in a photo. I've been working on the top rail for the gate which will sit on top of everything and cap it all off. I knocked up a test piece to see how things looked and fitted and whilst the glue was drying on that, I drilled, countersunk and hammer-finished a load of holes through the top of the gate to hold the rail on.

Here's a shot from about 20 mins ago of the second piece of rail with the glue drying.





If the weather treats me nice, I should get the top rail on the gate tommorow, and maybe even a bit of the front.

jasonB - If I'm out working on the gate when you're passing, do stop in and say hello. I'm well stocked for tea, coffee and beer.

DomValente - I may fill the whole of the side next to the rail with concrete - It could do with becoming a drainage channel down past the shed.


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## Fecn (29 Jun 2007)

Been busy again today in spite of the rain - I screwed some hooks into the side of the shed and strung a tarp out so I could carry on working. Got the two halves of the top rail glued together. Added some metal plates to anchor things since Ipe is a pipper to glue (apparently), and then added some pocket holes and screws too for good measure. The notch out of the end here fits around the locking mechanism at the top of the slam post when the gate is shut.






Gave everything a couple of coats of Liberon decking oil and got it screwed down to the top of the gate just in time for a torrential downpour.


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## Fecn (2 Jul 2007)

I've been busy today in between the showers, and managed to get a few planks on the gate.






8 down, 36 to go (according to my calculations)


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## Philly (2 Jul 2007)

Gonna look NICE!  
Philly


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## DomValente (2 Jul 2007)

Yup, works for me.

Dom


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## wizer (2 Jul 2007)

ahh that's what its going to look like. much nicer than i'd expected, well done.


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## Fecn (7 Jul 2007)

I've had all sorts of work related problems to deal with for the last 3 days, so I've found it very hard to make it out of the office and down the garden path.
I've only managed to get two planks per day added.... Very slow progress 

Even though you might not think that the process of screwing planks to a steel frame was very exciting, my gate seems to have been attracting attention from a number of passers-by, including a couple of celebrities who agreed to help out.

Here's a shot of the gate from today (14/44 planks done) - My celebrity helper for today was Charisma Carpenter - She was helping out with the decking oil until she spilled it and managed to get some butterflies stuck to her dress. Fortunately she saw the funny side and still agreed to pose for the photo.


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## Newbie_Neil (7 Jul 2007)

Hi Fecn

You've got it just right, I really like it.

Cheers
Neil


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## Paul Chapman (7 Jul 2007)

Very tasty - and the gate's looking quite good......

Cheers :wink: 

Paul


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## OPJ (7 Jul 2007)

What... Hey, whaddya know, there's a gate in that picture! :wink: 

Seriously though, it's looking even better than what I first had in mind, before you started to add the timber. Keep 'em coming.


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## gwaithcoed (7 Jul 2007)

> What... Hey, whaddya know, there's a gate in that picture!



Gate ! what gate? I see no gate. Oh yes now I see it.

Seriously I think it's fantastic.     

Alan.


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## Fecn (9 Jul 2007)

Thanks everyone for saying nice things about my gate - I'm rather pleased with the way it's looking myself.

My celebrity helper for yesterday was Liv Tyler - Liv has an excellent eye for angles, and she really helped out a lot. Here's a shot of Liv making sure the wood is prpoerly aligned with a 3mm gap, leaving me free to drill/screw from behind. 






And here's what things were looking like at the end of yesterday. 20/44 planks now in place... and getting easier and easier as I go.





Work is quiet today, and the sun is shining once again, so I might go and get a bit more done.


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## Fecn (11 Jul 2007)

No celebrity helpers for the past couple of days, and I've had the weather in my favour, so.... It's finished.

Here's a shot from across the road...





Here it is opening.. sliding down the gap between the shed and the fence.





... and here it is from the back.





I've got three little holes to fill on the front where the drill managed to break through (insulation tape drill-stop failure) when I was pre-drilling screwholes, and there's a slightly wonky angle around about the middle of the centre line which I've deccided I can live with - Overall, I'm rather pleased.

When I ordered the Ipe decking boards, I initially ordered an extra 20% for wastage... then upped it to 50% figuring that any left-overs could become garden furniture. I'm rather pleased to say that aside from about 50 little triangles from the ends of planks, I've got virtually no wastage whatsoever, so I've got 19x3.05M planks left - I feel an outdoor table and chairs might be appropriate. 

I've still got another day or two's work left on sundry bits... I'm going to put a couple of handrails from the shed to the posts to stop the nipper wandering down the back of the shed and getting in the way of the gate. Although a finishing touch, there's probably more woodworking skill involved in the handrail than there has been in the gate so far - I'm giong to use a router and everything 

Incidentally, in the bottom left corner of the last pic, you'll see my pathetic 4.8V Black & Decker screwdriver - It was never great, and after it's NiCd died, it sat in my garage for a couple of years - somewhere on these forums, I saw someone else's tool mod and stole the idea. Instead of a 4.8V NiCd pack, it now runs from a variable 0-15V 25A (40 peak) power supply, and it's got a new lease of life. At 7.2V, it's an excellent tool with plenty of torque - Thanks to whoever I stole the idea from. I'm tempted to mod some more old cordless tools the same way.

Thanks again everyone for the kind words. Hope you're enjoying the pics.


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## PowerTool (11 Jul 2007)

Fecn":2c86pnsw said:


> Hope you're enjoying the pics.



Yep - been great to follow the build,watching the whole project evolve.Thanks for taking the time.

Nice celebrity helpers as well.. :wink: 

Andrew


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## Slim (11 Jul 2007)

Very attractive gate. Well done.


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## Philly (11 Jul 2007)

Looks great!
Nice one, 
Philly


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## Dave S (11 Jul 2007)

Very interesting project, and it looks superb! 

Thanks for sharing  

Dave


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## Shultzy (11 Jul 2007)

It looks great. The decking oil gives it a nice lustre.


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## Fecn (9 Aug 2007)

Although the gate itself is pretty much done, the project itself isn't quite finished yet. I'm planning on using some of the left-over wood to make a safety fence to prevent the little'un wandering down the back of the shed in the path of the gate... but right now, I've been busy making a few improvements to the remote control systems. I asked on the off-topic forum, and at least five people said they'd like to read about electronics, and since the moderators didn't complain, here goes.

Because of safety regulations and suchlike, the gate travels at a very leisurely pace and takes around 45 seconds to fully open or close. The remote controls that came with the gate have a pitifully limited range of about 100 feet, and that's nowhere near long enough for the gate to open before I get to it on the road. Motorists round here are very impatient, and if forced to sit and wait behind me for 30 seconds whilst the gate opens, they're likely to crash into each other trying to get past (They're forever trying to overtake my wife as she turns right into the driveway... 6 near-misses in 12 months) - I looked into longer range transmitters and radio antennas, but things started to look expensive, and you still had no idea if your button-push was successful and the gate was opening... then I had a better idea.

The gate motor kit came with a keyswitch - Turning the key in one direction is the same as pressing button-1 on the remote... in the opposite direction, it's button 2. Inside the box is just two microswitches, so a couple of relays seems an easy way to send button-pushes to the gate.





For a while now, I've had development/experiment PCB called a 'NetIOM XAP' - It's a neat little board centered around a PIC Microcontroller, and it provides a 10Mbit network interface, a bunch of inputs and outputs and a serial port. When connected to the network, the board uses DHCP to optain an IP address, and sends and receives commands using a simple UDP based protocol called XAP. Conveniently, I have a relay extension board which plugs on to the main board.. and some LEDs.





My company (which conveniently has an office at my house) uses an open-source phone system called Asterisk. It's a fully-featured PABX system with voicemail, hold music, call diverting, conference calls and much more, and has the advantage that if you're up to the task of installing and running it, it's free. Our office asterisk server sends/receives all calls via broadband to an Asterisk server which our central-london rackspace supplier provides for us. The setup means that we have a bunch of 0845 numbers to play and very little in call charges. The Asterisk system has a plethora of different ways that you can extend the functionality, but one of the easiest ones is called Asterisk Gateway Interface (AGI) which allows you to run scripts and commands when calls come in or go out.

It occured to me that I could do the following...
1. Assign the gate an 0845 number all of it's own.
2. Assign the gate's 0845 number to a speedial on my mobile (and wife's etc)
3. When a call comes in for the gate, pass the callerID of the incoming call to an AGI script - if the callerid is good, then the script sends out the XAP commands to turn on and off the relays, which in-turn act as the button pushes that open and close the gate. 

Here's the bits of my asterisk extension.conf file which deal with the gate's 0845 number. The AGI script is called flash2.py and is just enough python code to get the NetIOM board to flash some lights. The script is run before the call is actually answered, and the call is hungup immediately, so it lasts for 0 seconds and costs 0 on my phonebills 

[gate]
exten => s,1,AGI(/root/flash2.py)
exten => s,2,Answer
exten => s,3,Hangup

Time for some electronics... 

The NetIOM board and relays need a 12V supply. My burglar alarm in the shed uses a 12V supply too, but rather annoyingly, uses non-rechargable batteries as it's backup. Since I needed to create a supply for the NetIOM board, I decided put a battery backup in too and use it to power both the alarm and NetIOM systems. I ordered a slimline 2.1AH Lead Acid battery for the job because they're dead easy to float-charge at 13.8V with a simple constant voltage charger. 

I spent a while digging around through drawers and boxes, finding old power supplies from all manner of things, and even found a 13.8V supply, but most of them were a bit on the chunky side, and I eventually want to put all this in a nice neat box. One of the neatest supplies I found was a little 12V 1A plug-in switchmode which came with a CCTV camera.

Time for a for a 'Don't Try This at Home' - I've got the right equipment and experience to do this (relatively) safely. Do not even think about attempting this direct to the mains, even with fuses in the way. When I'm messing with these things, I'm using current limited bench supply and a small inverter to generate my own AC supply voltage. My setup means the maximum energy I can supply is a measly 3Watts, and the biggest shock I can get from the board is a measly 0.16Joules of energy.. I'd feel the shock, but I can't cook myself.





Switchmode power supplies all work in pretty much the same way - They all have a high-voltage side which does it's work at mains voltages, and a low-voltage side. They all take mains-AC and rectify it to around 400VDC which they store on a capacitor... then use high-frequency switching to turn on/off the current to a high-frequency transformer which in turn steps down to a suitable voltage, which is smoothed with extra capacitors and inductors to get rid of the switching frequency ripple. The low voltage side always has a feedback circuit which controls the light-emmitting-side of an Opto-Coupler.. and the Light-receiving side of the Optocoupler controls the switching signal on the high voltage side. (sorry if I lost you all there)

This is one of the neatest ones I've seen thanks to the rather amazing Viper22a chip buried in the middle. I took a look at the datasheet for it... 8-pin chip switching at 60kHz which does 9-25V at up to 40W, with no heatsink or extra drive transistors. 
In the top left corner, you can see my very simple modification with an extra resistor, which increases the output voltage from 12V to 14.2V.. I will of course trim the legs and solder neatly before I'm done.

And finally, here it all is together...






There's a very simple battery charging/isolating circuit buried within the wiring. A 15ohm resistor acts as a very simple current limit device, and a diode prevents the battery discharging back through the the switchmode and lowers the switchmode voltage to about 13.5.. ideal for trickle charging. Two more diodes seprate the battery supply from the Switchmode and feed them to the same power cable.. which you can see here powering the NetIOM.

I've got a metal-lined plastic enclosure that's going to hold all this lot but I need to modify it to provide mounting points for the various boards. SWMBO and nipper are off galavanting this weekend, so I stand a good chance of getting this finished. 

For extra points, I may also hook into the magnets and reed switches on the gate so I can work out if it's open, closed or somewhere in-between - Then I could use the information to decide what to do on the phonecall... If it's closed, open and hang-up... If it's open, answer the call and ask if you want it closing.


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## ByronBlack (9 Aug 2007)

Your just showing off now.


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## DavidE (9 Aug 2007)

Hi Fecn,

A very neat solution thanks for taking the time to note it all down.

With the hardware you have there is so much more potential to "play" too )

As an avid user of PICs I've never actually used the TCP/IP interface built into a PIC. This module certainly gives the functionality without the donkey work. 

I hadn't really considered the potential of linking VOIP with the real world. Thanks for the idea - so much potential (always limited my thinking to the phone line and tones)!

Cheers
David


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## Fecn (10 Aug 2007)

ByronBlack":qf2syzeb said:


> Your just showing off now.


Well.. there's not a lot of point in making cool stuff if you don't show it to people and make them go Ooooh.


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## Fecn (11 Aug 2007)

SWMBO's away at the moment, so the evening has been mine. I found an old case which used to belong to a BT kilostream box back in the 90s. The box has a nice metal lining which nearly eliminates any RF issues. 

I added a load of little brass stand-offs for mounting my PCBs - For the high voltage bits, I isolated things further with an extra plastic rectangle. I drilled a couple of holes and used some blobs of polymorph to give the backup battery a place to sit.





And here's the box right now (4:16AM) with the boards fitted into place.





I should be able to get new front and rear panels made up tommorow and get my I/O connectors fitted... then it's ready to put in the shed and hook up to the gate.


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## Johnboy (11 Aug 2007)

I don't understand a word of it but it looks very clever.

John


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## Fecn (12 Aug 2007)

Johnboy":jrb7h41w said:


> I don't understand a word of it but it looks very clever.



The microchips and flashing lights make it look far clever than it really is... With the exception of the battery charging circuit, the rest of this is just an exercise in repackaging electronics into a dust-proof box which protect the bits inside from the dusty workshop/shed environment.

I needed some suitable plastic to make the front panel so a 20 year old broken keyboard became the latest victim of my dremmel.





I used the old facia as a template and cut roughly to size using the dremmel, then sanded back to the line using a belt sander followed by a sanding drum. I finished off with 320 grit silicon carbide paper which left a lovely finish on the edges. 





Here's the finished article with the network sockets and pretty flashing lights mounted in place





And here it is all together.. minus the lids.





Time for me to go and sort out the wiring in the gate motor box whilst there's still a bit of light left..


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## Fecn (12 Aug 2007)

I ran an a shielded control cable through the existing conduits to the gate motor and wired in my 6 wires to the control inputs and lamp outputs.





And here it is in the corner of the workshop. The grey cable through the wall is the data connection from the gate which connects to my box of tricks through a 9-way plug. I'll screw it to the wall tommorow.





Amazingly, it all works and I can now open and close the gate from my PC. I went for the extra bonus points and connected up the inputs to read back the gate status, but I haven't done the relevant programming to read the inputs yet, so I don't know if that bit works.

And so, here ends my small diversion into electronics. As you can probably guess, this isn't the first electronics project I've done, but it is the most photogenic one. With the exception of the backup battery, everything else here was made from bits I had kicking around and old junk. I'm glad that at least a couple of you have enjoyed seeing this, even if I am way off the topic of woodwork here.

All that remains for me to do is the gate safety rails, so tommorow evening I shall swap soldering iron for SMCS and get on with some woodwork.


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## DavidE (12 Aug 2007)

Hi Fecn,

Looking good - if your anything like me... you'll probably be quite pleased with yourself for getting it in a box and almost finished now. I have so many half finshed projects or things in development. I sometimes have to switch due to higher priorities or I get bored with that particular thing etc.

All you need to do now is add the extra features... :wink: how about a proximity switch on the motor/gear teeth somewhere. You could then measure how fast the gate is opening. This could be used for condition monitoring in the short term in case it jams... or in the long term for trending the speed so you can see if some maintenance might be needed if it starts slowing down.  
David


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## lemonjeff (19 Sep 2007)

Hi Fecn,
Got a few questions if you've a minute or 2 to spare, I like the garden table BTW (i'm not crawling, I really do like it.... honest) .

It looks like I will be going down the sliding gate route to span a 5m opening in front of my garage.
1. What span is yours?
2. What is the size of the RSJ and box section?
3. Is it easy enough to Open/Close by hand ? (i'm a tight wad)
4. What sections steels is the gate frame made of?
5. Does the top roller(s) run on a 20mm bar as well.
6. Lastly was the planning permission for the gate?

Jeff.


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## Fecn (20 Sep 2007)

lemonjeff":yuzgv8go said:


> Hi Fecn,
> Got a few questions if you've a minute or 2 to spare, I like the garden table BTW (i'm not crawling, I really do like it.... honest) .


Thanks - I have to say I'm very pleased with how it turned out 



lemonjeff":yuzgv8go said:


> It looks like I will be going down the sliding gate route to span a 5m opening in front of my garage.
> 1. What span is yours?


5536mm between the brick pillars, 5800mm for the whole gate.


lemonjeff":yuzgv8go said:


> 2. What is the size of the RSJ and box section?


RSJ was 100mm wide x 150mm high... it was the smallest thing we could get hold of - It doesn't need to be big or strong.. just flat and level for round bar to be welded to and the gate to roll on the top of - The concerete's taking all the weight. - For the record, the gate support post is 150mm square.. the slam post is 100mm square - both of them go about 3ft underground.



lemonjeff":yuzgv8go said:


> 3. Is it easy enough to Open/Close by hand ? (i'm a tight wad)


Yes it is - Because the wood I used is so dense and heavy, my gate weighs in at around 350KG.. but even still, I can move easily enough... In terms of resistance.. it feels like you're pushing a shopping trolley.


lemonjeff":yuzgv8go said:


> 4. What sections steels is the gate frame made of?


The bottom rail of the gate into which the wheels fit is 100mmx50mm box section, the rest is 50x50mm


lemonjeff":yuzgv8go said:


> 5. Does the top roller(s) run on a 20mm bar as well.


Nope - The top of the support post has 4 nylon rollers in a row - We welded an L-section to the top of the gate which sits over the rollers - Hopefully these two pics shows it OK.










lemonjeff":yuzgv8go said:


> 6. Lastly was the planning permission for the gate?


Yes, permission was required in my area because it's over 1M high and visible from the road.

If you PM me with an email address I can send you copies of the plans, more photos, planning permission application, etc etc etc


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## Lukey (20 Sep 2007)

Looks very nice.

How are you fixing the planks to the frame?


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## Fecn (20 Sep 2007)

Welded on to the main 50mm box section on the gate, there's some 3mm flat strips. I drilled holes through the flat strips and then used stainless steel screws to attach the planks from behind.

Here's a couple of links to the full-sized (3264 x 2448 px) photos of the back of the gate. If you click the links, and then zoom into the photos in your browser, it should explain things better than my few words.

http://yourhome.org.uk/gallery2/d/1559-1/P7090037.JPG
http://yourhome.org.uk/gallery2/d/1586-1/P7110048.JPG


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