Best way to repair badly designed gate

Prof Wonmug · 2009-06-13T00:14:41+00:00

We have a couple of wooden gates. The latches keep bnreakiong becausethe gates were badly designed so that all of the force of closing isborne by the latch. I would appreciate suggetsions for how to modifythe gate to add some sort of "stop" to take the force off the latch.I have uploaded several photos of the gate to this link: The gate from the front, both closed and open.03: The gate from the back.04: The broken latch. This time, the latch got metal fatigue andbroke. Other times, it has pulled the screws loose.05: This shows that the gate has no stop other than the latch. Ifpushed closed without a latch, it will go well past fully shut. Thelatch takes the full force.06: This shows that the side rail of the gate and the frame are thesame width. One idea I had was to nail a length of 1/2" x 1/2" stockvertically onto the frame. The problem is that the gate will then notclose fully. In addition to having to shim the latch, I will get grieffrom SWMBO because it doesn't align.07: This shows the bottom of the gate. There is very little clearance.Another idea I had was to make a threshold with a stop similar to theidea above. The stop could be outside the frame, which would allow thegate to close fully. The downside to this is (a) the clearance and (b)it will be something to trip over.Another idea is to fasten small "fingers" on the back side of the gate(parallel with the latch). I was thinking one at the top and one atthe bottom. Maybe one in the middle. The downside of this is it isunattractive and they would be prone to stabbing someone.My last idea is to fasten a piece of 1x5 to the front of thelatch-side frame with about 1" protruding into the opening for thegate to bang against. This is minimally obtrusive and not likely tosnag anyone.Is there a better way?PS: Sorry for cross-posting. I wasn't sure which group is the betterfit.

Jun 13, 2009 24 Replies

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Mark Lloyd 17 years ago

The thing keeps wanting me to enable scripts, like most commercial sites do. However, it does work properly without them.

That site is something I could mention if I'm asked to recommend something.

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Ed Pawlowski 17 years ago

Are you shooting them for a magazine cover? Get them down to 100k and I'll look at them. 2 MB is just plain silly.

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SteveB 17 years ago

WTF? Advertisements, and a huge file I have to download? Buy a vowel. Get a clue. Put it on Flickr, or photobucket, or any commonly used format on the Internet, and I'll give you some advice.

Steve (former steel erection contractor, welder, construction magnet)

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SteveB 17 years ago

Flickr

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SteveB 17 years ago

formatting link

My current Flickr postings to go along with current Usenet newsgroup discussions. Free, easy, and people don't have the aversion to using it as when they have to watch ads or download files that come from a place that leads off with advertising.

Steve

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