Mom always said, A job worth doing is a job worth doing well. True. I also like to say, A job worth starting is a job worth finishing. I have no intentions of leaving loose ends on our new corral system. One by one, we are checking all the gates off the list.
Two more this time. Roughly 16 footers.
For this sized gate, we turned to our 1.90" pipe. This stuff is sought after. Handy size to work with, but fairly uncommon in the oilfield world. It was a common tubbing size back in the coal bed methane days, which is where this string came from.
Two 4' gates were to be built. So we cut eight 44" uprights.
We just laid the the 16' top rail below and on top of the 44"ers. This gave us a roughly 48" tall gate. My buddy Devlin came over to help piece them together.
For this, we used Grandpa's bent up water pipe that we took off his old round pen.
Because this pipe is small enough, we chose not to saddle the joints. However, when you do this you end up with some pretty good gaps to fill.
There's a couple ways to tackle this. I usually implore the pulse method, of stitching the weld back and forth by pulling and releasing the trigger before the weld gets too hot. I'll usually work one side and then the other, until they meet in the middle. With a mig welder you can make this dance happen.
Not the strongest weld. But for our application, it serve the purpose just fine.
Another method is to lay a lone bead to help fill in the gap. This works well in an inverted position, where gravity isn't in your favor.
Cool.
Vertical welds are a friend of mine. I almost always run down hill. You can get better penetration running up hill, but it takes more skill. And with a gap to fill, down hill is your best bet.
Again, I just pulse back and forth until it is all stitched up.
Should work.
Then Darin and I threw them on White Horse.
Up and over.
These are pivotal gates to our corral network. The east heads out into the pasture, while the north goes into the arena.
There's a lot weighing on these hinges, so you want to get the best weld you can. Grinding off the rust is the first step in the right direction. Don't worry, the rusty patina will grow back!
Because we want this gate to fold completely back on itself, we offset the hinge bracket to make it turn a clean 180.
By doing so, it sits flat against the corral fence. Because cattle will go in and out of here from the pasture to water, we want to tie it open tightly to the fence.
Woking on hilly ground with gates is tough. We pretty much just shot the middle with this bad boy. Low on one side, high on the other.
It opens good and wide on the side that we will use the most.
The other direction is only about 90 degrees before it bottoms out.
However, it is enough to align the two gates if you needed to run critters from the arena directly into the pasture, or vice versa.
Giddy up.
A gate is only as good as the method that is used to mount it. These posts are not concreted into the ground, but they are welded firmly to the rails and posts that proceed them. This will give them plenty of support when they are running in line with the rest of the fence. Off to a 90 degree angle, hanging by themselves for very long, might become an issue. Time will tell. As for now, I'm satisfied. Let's ranch.
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