holes punched in tube

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where can I get 1" square holes punched in some 1 1/2" 16g square tube? I am building a gate and I want to simplify this build Attached Images"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal"   -Henry Ford
Reply:Tubing is not normally punched as the sides collapse when punched. You can buy channel that is punched, square or round. Some has fairly wide sides and looks a lot like tubing. It's the way to go for what you are doing. You can order it from King Ornamental metals.
Reply:I need the holes at my specs, not a standard 4" or 5" or 6"or whatever, it has to be a custom center to center because of the dimensions, I know tube can be punched because thats the way the company that makes this gate does it, I think there is a mandrel inside when they do it, good thought on the channel though, I just want the tube, I'd rather cut, layout and weld it with the tube instead of the channel. I found this company, I just don't know if they do small jobber stuff, I'm going to call them tomorrow"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal"   -Henry Ford
Reply:Lookiung at the gate design I would Just make the exterior frame out of 1 1/2" and the interior design out of 1". Then just cut and weld your pieces together. You could still use 1 1/2" on parts of the interior design if you wanted to , just make a jig to hold the 1" in position for welding. It will be a much stronger, and quieter gate if welded, than if you use punched steel. Your expense will be much less too. You are looking at about a 4 hour fab job.
Reply:You could send it out to a tube laser and have them cut.  For that matter you can send files for each piece and have it ready to weld when you pick it up.  I don't know what your budget is for this project but it would be a lot cheaper to make a temp fixture to hold it all in place.Dan
Reply:Sounds like a job for a plasma cutter.
Reply:This can be done pretty easily with plasma ( at about 25 to 30 amps, with FineCut consumables) on a conventional x - y cutting machine. I recently did a job for a guy on 1" square tube, 16 gauge wall thickness that required 1/2" x 1-1/2" rectangles....the job came out very nice. I had to do many identical pieces so I clamped some hard stops for placement of the tube on my table slats.I'm sure a laser could handle this as well.Jim Colt
Reply:Another way this can be done with plasma cutter is use a piece of stock with the pattern pre cut in it. Such as tube over tube with the square cutout on the larger tube which slides over the smaller tube then clamps in place. The guide hole would be larger than the required hole. The guide hole would then be used for guiding the torch around the inner tube to make the necessary cuts.Co-Own CNC shop:Miller :1251 plasma cutter, MaxStar 700 TIG/Stick, & XMT 456 Multiprocess Welder.&  2 Hypertherm HPR260's Plasma CutterSorry I had a bad stroke but now I am back.