Gate Distortion

[ozzman]

right ive a got a question for all the gate makers here, how do you stop distortion?

As ive made 3 gates now at my place of work and every 1 has had a least 1 side bow inwards after welding, and its really frustrating me.

the problem is you dont get any real expereince of distortion at college, and the only fabricator where i work dont speak english, so im having to try and work this all myself .

what is the best joint prep when welding the sides, top and bottom together? is it best to bevel both ends of the top and bottom peices then butt up the sides or would it be better to mitre all my cuts.

thanks for any help on this one as its really starting to **** me off cutting out the the warped peices then weldin in new bits

oh yea also would it be best to mark out the gate design on my bench then weld tabs to then bench, drop all the peices in to the tabs and weld up or is that likley to cause problems squaring it up?

cheers for any advice you can give ozz....

 

[^neo^]

You want something heavy and straight to clamp to the sides when you weld them, ideally a lump of channel or something. Clamp it on in a few places and once the welding is done, leave the gate to cool for a while before removing the clamps

 

[Baz-Cem]

What thickness steel are you using for your gates?

 

[ozzman]

40x10 50x12 that sort of thickness, there all heay gate im making.

 

[Hitch]

Neo is right, clamp the bottom rail to peice of something strong, like 100x50 box, or channel or similar.

Sides also tend to bend a bit, i prep the outside of the joints a do a nice run in there, and then a minimal downhill weld on the inside corners.
Again, clamping a bar on the side can help, position the clamps a couple of inches in from the ends.

For mid rails, to get them straight when tacking up, i use a bit of flat on its edge, with a small clamp to pull the bar while tacking.

If youve got rail heads poking past the top rail, just make sure you tack all the bars straight, then a bar clamped on the bottom only is normaly sufficient.

 

[Welderpaul]

Yup - same here. I lay them out on the bench, tack the outside frame and lay in the infill bars on a spacer jig. Tack all them togther then stand the gate up. I clamp a lump of channel or box and then fully weld.
I'm trying to come up with a faster method than messing about with clamps and lengths of steel - espcially when it has to be swapped sides to weld all the way round the infill bars.
Very time consuming.

 

[peterd51]

Hi,

when you say 'clamps' do you mean screw-up clamps?

Have you tried the big, silver market stall clips? They open up about 1.5" and, for me, need two hands to open them...they're pretty strong.

Ask around the Sunday markets if someone has some spares they can sell...should be around 70p each. The smaller red clips are cheaper but no-where near as strong.

Regards
Peter

 

[Drains]

They won't hold back a piece of moving steel Peter. It'd be g clamps, carver clamps etc. No springs involved.

 

[ozzman]

thanx for the advice everyone.

well went to work this afternoon, and finally built a gate with no distortion!, and was to within a mm corner to corner.
so its happy days today

and i know what your saying about infill bars there a right mission trying to weld neatly round a bit of 16mm bar.

but im getting better everyday

anyways cheers for the pointers guys

 

[Hitch]

We have a shed load of really cheap Silverline gclamps kicking about, they are adequate for this purpose, and cheap enough to buy a dozen at a time

 

[Hitch]

If you end up out of square, a good drop onto the corner soon solves that

 

[ozzman]

cheers for tip hitch.

i gota start making a 3 1/2m long gate today so that should be interesting, dont think ill br dropping it on its corner tho.if its out of square.

maybe ill drive the forklift into it

 

[Wozzaaah]

I have some el cheapo Aldi F-clamps which I've used a lot and they're still doing great, the good thing is they were so cheap they're totally disposable. Think they were about 8 quid for a box of 6 or something like that so I bought 4 boxes. Not thrown one away yet