Last fall I prepared detailed drawings for the driveway gate for my friend Scott, who is an engineer that I work with. Scott had previously designed the piers and arranged their construction. The piers are actually an armature of stainless steel, which goes about five feet deep into a footing. The bricks of the pier rest on the footing and are built up around the armature. The first picture shows my SolidWorks design of the gate assembly.
1. Gate Assembly

The second picture shows the gate leaf components.
2. Gate leaf asm

The third picture shows the weld callouts for the gate leaf. The gate consists of 2" x 4" Aluminum tubing as well as three solid bocks that have tapped holes in them. The curved tube is bent the hard way and we couldn't find anyone willing and able to bend the tube in the Detroit area, so we had a company in
Chicago bend it for us. I sent the design out to one of my company's local fabrication venders for welding, because I was concerned that the job was a little big for me and that my Dynasty 200 DX welder wouldn't have enough power to weld the heavy blocks, even with a Helium Argon mix.
3. Gate leaf weld callouts

I chose to use spherical bearings for the hinge bearings so that the bearings wouldn't fight each other if the pintles weren't perfectly aligned. I used a thrust bearing that had a concave recess that matched the diameter of the ball, so the thrust bearing would also accommodate misalignment.
4. Spherical bearing and thrust washer

The pintles are 1" stainless steel with 1"-8 UNC threads on them. My design called for the pintles to be reverse bored as shown below to add a proper finish and to make the bearings fit in the blocks that had to mount to the 4" wide tubing.
5. Spherical and thrust bearing

1. Gate Assembly
The second picture shows the gate leaf components.
2. Gate leaf asm
The third picture shows the weld callouts for the gate leaf. The gate consists of 2" x 4" Aluminum tubing as well as three solid bocks that have tapped holes in them. The curved tube is bent the hard way and we couldn't find anyone willing and able to bend the tube in the Detroit area, so we had a company in
Chicago bend it for us. I sent the design out to one of my company's local fabrication venders for welding, because I was concerned that the job was a little big for me and that my Dynasty 200 DX welder wouldn't have enough power to weld the heavy blocks, even with a Helium Argon mix.
3. Gate leaf weld callouts
I chose to use spherical bearings for the hinge bearings so that the bearings wouldn't fight each other if the pintles weren't perfectly aligned. I used a thrust bearing that had a concave recess that matched the diameter of the ball, so the thrust bearing would also accommodate misalignment.
4. Spherical bearing and thrust washer
The pintles are 1" stainless steel with 1"-8 UNC threads on them. My design called for the pintles to be reverse bored as shown below to add a proper finish and to make the bearings fit in the blocks that had to mount to the 4" wide tubing.
5. Spherical and thrust bearing
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