Wanted, a latch for a gate that lets it swing both ways

OP here, yes, I posted one of these too. It's just what I want except that it's too big, as I said if I could get a small one of these it would be perfect.

The gate needs to be reasonably securely closed when it's closed, as in wind, chickens, other animals etc. can't open it.

I've bodged things like that with wood on other gates, I think that's a good idea though, ring latches are very cheap so cannibalising two doesn't seem extravagant. Thanks.

I found the Kenham latches too but I think they only open one way don't they? Otherwise they'd be excellent as you can just push the gate to unlatch it.

The way mine is done is the gate latch is the same as normal but it has an almost square end. The catch is a thickish piece of steel about 1cm thick with a notch cut in it to accept the latch bolted to the frame.

___ ___ | \ / | | \ / | | | | | | | | | | |__| | | | | O O | |___________|

Stand off hinges allow the gate to swing both inwards and outwards.

On Mums side gate it's more 'friendly' in that the initial faces of the part on (what would be the) slam has curved faces on both sides so you don't have to manually 'operate' the latch to latch it (just unlatch it).

A bit like this but with 'ramps' that are more shallow:

/| |\ / | | \ / | | \ / | | \ / ----- \ / \ |_________________|

You just push it shut to about the right place and it latches (from either direction).

Cheers, T i m

Simple ring drop latch with an operator on both sides of the gate?

You only needed this bit of the url:

Yes, that's exactly what I want, as I said I've seen big 'field gate' sized ones of these but nothing suitable for a small 'garden gate' sort of gate.

Plenty of small gate ones and easy to make too.

Yes, but you'd have to be able to turn the ring so the bar is almost upright to allow the gate to swing either way. Thus you'd have to leave out the 'slot' part of the latch.

It's a possible/reasonable solution though, it would probably be best to add a 'stop' of some sort so that the latch bar is held just beyond upgright when you open the gate.

Well, the slam part could be 3D printed and be reasonably hard wearing and could be fashioned to mount on whatever makes up the existing slam (tube, square, flat etc) and the 'latch' only really needs to be a strip of steel plate (say 25 x 5mm section) with a hole drilled off centre (making the nose slightly heavier) and with the tang having a slightly rounded lower edge section to help it ride up the ramps and a stop to stop it dropping below horizontal?

Cheers, T i m

If you haven't found the solution yet, this is genius:

Neat, but ironically it would not be horse-proof! I've had horses that could operate the pull-down bar latch in American barn sliding doors. And they defeat people who have not seen one before.

I can't really see how it works, it doesn't have to be horse proof in our case, just chicken proof. We do have lots of old horseshoes around the place and I can weld things.

Youtube just has a link to Facebook and after that I lost interest!

Its very obvious, you pull up on the ring to release the latch.

Then the horseshoe is moved by the gate to let the latch lock again and the horseshow stops the gate from swinging.

It will do that fine.

More fool you. That allows you to buy it if you don?t want to make it yourself.

They would put their nose under the bit of horseshoe on their side, and lift it up. Some might use their lips.

American barn doors are typically solid up to about 4 feet, and the bit above has vertical bars essentially like prison bars, in a box-section frame. To unlatch, you grip the bar nearest the opening, and slide it upwards a few inches. They are quite stiff. But once a horse has figured it out, it uses its nose or lips to do what you would do with your hand.

He might make that claim and it might be true for cattle.

But the whole of the moving bit is solid, so it could be raised from the horseshoe by applying a suitable moment as well as a straight upwards force. Horses can untie knots with their teeth, I am confident that some could defeat that. And mules even more so.