Gate Ideas

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I am going to be building a double 6 foot gate. I would like to get ideas of how to mount them to the stone columns, and how to fabricate the hinges and lock.
Reply:Define "stone". I'm guessing you mean block or artificial stone or a stone venier as opposed to a solid monolith or a stacked stone pier.Block you have any number of options. I've seen some masons instal the hardware as they lay up the block. Usually it's some sort of L shaped bolt thats installed and set plumb in both directions that the gate hinges later drop down on top of. The other option is some sort of masonry anchors, bolts, tapcons, wedge anchors or epoxy. In one case I also saw them set steel plates in the block similar to what they do for bearing plates and the welder later welded the hinges to the plates ( welder was the masons brother so they worked together some what) Given a choice solid block is better than hollow block, or at least have them fill the block in the area you plan to have the hinges. Open hollow block is a PITA if you need to hang a heavy weight. Hilti makes a screen insert thats used with their epoxy for getting maximum loading in hollow block. The epoxy expands out thru the screen in the cavity of the block and forms a "plug" that can't be pulled thru the hole as well as glueing the anchor to the thin wall of the block.Artifical stone or stone venier is a bit different however. Artifical stone really has almost no strength. You need to get back into the supporting masonry. That usually means long bolts, or epoxy set anchors. Real stone venier or in rare cases actual stacked stone will depend a lot on what type of stone it is. Stone venier has many of the same issues that artificial stone has. If you anchor to the stone, usually the stone can pull free from the supporting masonry if you don't get in far enough. Many times the stone can take the load and not have the bolts/anchors pull out, but the individual stone can't stay "glued" to the block pier. In other cases like sand stone or brown stone, the stone really doesn't have all that much strength unless you can set the bolts deep.Real stone on the other hand can be a real cr@p shoot. I've had stone so hard it's almost imposible to drill without going to diamond bits and a core drill. I've also had stone so soft you can carve it with a utility knife. I've seen several antique gates hung on real stone monoliths that had L type bolts installed over 100 years ago. They star drilled the stone and either lead set the bolts or drove in wooden plugs and ran the bolt into the wood or used wooden wedges around an iron "pin". I'd probably opt for epoxy set hardware or some type of wedge anchors in this case depending on the weight of the gate.Last edited by DSW; 10-18-2011 at 09:09 PM..No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan