This gate is at my local steel supplier around the corner from the shop. They're a part of Eagle Steel. They wanted a gate but cheap and they'd supply all the materials. The problem with doing cheap is you don't want it to look cheap. Sorta funny how that works. You can charge the bedevil out of something and it looks cheap and that's sometimes kewl. But cheap looking cheap just don't get it. Besides that every weldor that's goes through is gonna critique the darn thing. So I decided to just make something a little different, character flaw, first to admit it. It's all ten gauge two inch (2 3/8) pipe fitted and welded with a five foot horse panel attached to the front with a couple of strands of britches catcher on top for grins. The eagle head was freehanded and I wanted it to appear to be just sitting there without the usual tabs that are like what stencils have. I mean heck, everyone can cut but few make it appear to float. I like being part of the few. If you're into gates you might note there isn't a truss rod or an angle brace within a block or two. But if you look close you will see the vertical braces are staggered. It works like a grill at a cookout. I have a thirty eight foot wide slide gate made all out of schedule forty two and three eighths galvanized pipe that's nine foot tall with the rollers at each end. An old boy had the hardest time trying to figure out just why it didn't sag in the middle without an X or angled brace anywhere. I'm not sure if he's got it yet that just because everyone puts them in their gates that doesn't mean you have to if you're real lucky.
This evening we loaded up the door frame for the house where I'm building the front doors.
This frame looks pretty big sitting on the trailer.
But once we got to the house it didn't appear big at all. It fit in right where it was supposed to. Funny how that works sometimes and sometimes not. I don't think you can see the details but there are thousands of dents and dings in the metal. Four, sometimes five, hammers with different patterns and one old man's right arm just getting after it. It's sorta interesting how things work. You have a forty to fifty dollar hammer and you hit something perfectly wrong and a chip flies out. You push the dirty words out of the way so you won't trip over them and grab another hammer. Then one day you want to have a distinctive ding kinda dent and low and behold, lemon becomes lemonade. Life is so good it's shame you only get one chance. I don't know if you can see the bowls along the sides and in the top of the frame. They're there to hold flowers. There is no pattern to their placement. The customer looked at that and gave me a questiony kinda look. I explained their placement as a reflection of my feminine side. You know the mother nature part of oneself. I pointed out to him that mother nature doesn't put two flowers on side of a plant and then get all in a tither to balance it out with two on the other side. If she didn't get excited about balance then why the heck should I? He informed me that I was the artist so it must be okay. Have I got it made or what? Don't say it harv. BTW harv it you look back in that mess you will see a rusty looking frame with a curvey kind of shape. It's a swing. I got my head a little cockeyed one day and made a swing out of chainlink materials, just for grins. I planned on putting it at a wholesalers so all my cohorts in crime could rest a bit on me. But the one inch mesh eleven gauge chainlink turned out to be so comfortable I kept it for myself. Wife wants to move it up to the house. But I ain't finished with it. I sometimes have a problem finishing things, character flaw, first to brag about it.
Here's some details on the installed door frame.
Here's another shot of the door frame detail
This is the second attempt to take a shot of the whole frame in place. Last night it came out all distorted. Tonight it did the same thing. I think it's with the photo software I'm using that doesn't like the angle of the dangle or something. But in real life the thing is tall and thin, rich looking, not short and fat like me.
In my youth I had to have a trailer that would haul my racecar. I didn't have any money to buy one so I made one. One of the problems with race car trailers is the car starts out real close to the ground. And often they are damaged racing and must be loaded and unloaded with even less ground clearance. So I made it a tilt trailer. It was ugly but trick. So I'd like to find some old pictures of it and put them here along with a description of how it was made so some folks can venture into uniqueland. It's not a bad place, rather fun really. I see there's a real desire amongst some of the folks that let their fingers do the walking to TBN for a demonstration on how to bend heavy wall tubing for say like ROPS. I've figured out how to do it where the handier types can duplicate the process at home or in the shop of their new very best friend. One of the problems with wagon design, your old standard little red wagon or old farm hay or grain or cotton wagon is you have to allow for the swing when doing a turn. A bud of mine loves to restore and work on old cars. So he needed to have a buggy to walk through the old car swapmeets to haul his new found treasures. So he designed and built one. It has no swing problem. The back wheels trail exactly in the tread of the front wheels. I'm sure he wasn't the originator of the design but that doesn't mean the design isn't the trickest thing since putting pockets on shirts. I'd like to do a thing showing how to make such a wagon. If we get around to it about next spring it'll be perfect for a Mother's Day gift. I want to do the receiver thing for the FEL I've talked about. I've even arranged for a Kubota tractor for my demonstration (he gets to keep the thingy dingy, nothing's free it seems anymore). I'd like to build some home made forks and hay spears. And you know in the old days the farmer's number one bud besides the bank was the blacksmith. I'd like to get with some local smiths that are up on the old ways and do a demo on how they shaped and made plows etc. Just the other day a friend whose dad was a smith called to find out if I could resharpen and shape the blades on his brush hog. I have all the equipment and bud remembers as a kid all the farmers bringing in their blades for his dad to tune up. That would be fun. I'd like to build a project green house. I already have one. You see about eight years ago I poured a slab for my little building in the back yard. At one end I poured a section lower than the building slab five by ten, building ten by twelve. I shaped a drain and ran the drain out to the edge of the slab and capped it. Then about three or four years after that I put in all the french drains in the back yard and ran a drain to the street in front. At that time I picked up the drain from the future green house and put it into the drain system. A couple of years ago I worked on a multimillion dollar house of one of the biggest jerks to ever walk the face of the earth. He put both "R's" in SORRY, almost added a third. But his master bath was being remodeled by some buds of mine. I told them not to break the glass when they removed it. That glass and some recycled redwood planking facilitated our green house I built this year. But I know there are some guys out there that would love to build a nice green house. I think we can build one that's economical and durable. Mother's Day again comes to mind. I've been watching the thing up there on pipe pulling. For the life of me I can't remember the details but I made a little machine for a friend's company for burying cable tv and telephone drops. It worked real well. But it just wasn't enough better than the old way to justify converting over to it. But it was a total original design. I just can't remember the details. That's a problem I have, remembering, gets me in trouble all the time......... I think we could have some fun with different ways of doing things like feeders and furniture too. I'd also like to do some rock stuff. On that fountain in the project at the photo web site I use we get to see what happens when a mind does it's own thing and a customer goes with it. I put that fountain together with epoxy, big rocks, little rocks, and stainless steel. The main rock, sorry boulder, it was sensitive about that, weighed four hundred pounds. The way I put it in there it's actually this large coffee table with a hole drilled from the bottom. In this hole fits some clear plastic tubing attached to a pump. I went through three pumps to find the one I wanted, that did what I wanted to happen without me knowing exactly what I wanted to happen but I knew I would know it when I saw it, get it? At that point I placed a big rock on top of the boulder, the one with feelings about names. I turned on the first pump. It was like the spray bar on one of those big water buggies at a construction. That dog mighta hunted. But not in a nice neighborhood like that. So I studied a bit. I needed the water to come out with some volume but not straight out all mad like. I made a bowl in the bottom of the top rock. I figured that bowl would confuse the water under pressure just enough that it'd come out between the two rocks more like a staggering drunk than a sprinter with the devil on his tail. It worked. Never ever doubt the power of confusion. Then I decided that we needed a little water coming out from the bottom of the statue standing on the rock above the boulder with the inferiority complex. So I drilled a smaller hole in the bowl. That worked. But we had some splashing. So I drilled some smaller rocks an epoxied some half inch stainless pins in them. I drilled corresponding holes in the boulder to break up the flow and cut back on the splashing. That worked. I have a saying about luck. "I'd rather be lucky than good. Anyone can be good. That only takes working at it." With the fountain I got real lucky. I'd picked out the rocks at the landscape products vendor. They were just rocks with a color approximately the color we had around the place. But when the water got going it turned out there were these really neat lines of quartz running through the rocks that were like chrome on a Mercedes. You wouldn't think it'd be appropriate but when you actually see it sometimes it's alright. I gotta go. Someone's complaining right now about me chewing up all this bandwidth meandering.....
I thought I'd share some of the funner gates I've had the pleasure of making. This gate latch started out as a piece of scrap sitting in a pile by the chop saw. It caught my eye and I'll be doggoned if it didn't look just like the hood of a Peterbuilt. It went downhill from there. To open the gate you tilt the bed back. To close it you bring it back down to rest. Inside the bed is some eyes for holding a padlock. It's heavy and Tonka was so impressed with it they haven't said a word about using their tires and wheels!
Closed
This is a section of fence. I do believe I'm the only guy to have built a fence in a fence. Now that's a goal worth striving for! If you look you will see brands in the top section of the fence. There are seven of them repeated. They're all from my imagination using the initials of family members. Except of course for that one with international no symbol with an L in it. That I got from a christmas thingy.
Here's a detail from the gate at the same home. They turned me loose, not a good thing to do. They are such a strong family unit that the only image that worked for me was this.
This is a gate I did at my uncle's place in Camp Verde Arizona. We did it right there off the truck. I'd brought along some surplus five eighths bar stock just for grins. They wanted a walk gate and let me go with it. Again, not a good thing to do. What was fun was the pieces were just so long so the gate was short. As we stood there kicking rocks with the neighbors one of them suggested putting a hat on it. Now I've heard of throwing a hat at it if you didn't like something but, a gate? So I asked the idea man just how he proposed me making a hat for it. He told me that a hat was just a lazy eight with a staple on top if I wanted to draw it out.
This is the first gate where I used the drawing with steel technique. The ink is quarter by inch and a half bent with a home made bender. It's where I noticed that things are really made of the same componets rearranged and used over and over. The glitz for me is always finding that componet to repeat.
This is a gate that I occasionally see copied around here. And it's a copy too! The original one was for the local high school. I'd told them I'd build them a gate for five hundred dollars. When it came time to do the gate I was near broke and the opening was twenty six feet. So I went through my scrap pile and the design and dimensions were the results of the sizes of the materials in the scrap pile. Sometimes lucky is the best thing to be.
This gate was done with a very talented and eccentric artist. She was nuttier than a fruitcake and ten times as sweet. So the gate was all my labor and some of my creativity leaned on by her wanting something and me not always being able to find it. The lamps are a good example. She'd purchased some really high dollar ones and I'd installed them. Within two hours of my leaving after the installation she was on the phone wanting me to come back and take them down cause she was terrified someone would break the glass and ruin them. Then she wanted me to make something that could take abuse. The globes are Home Depot's cheapest. The stems and leaves were hand made by me. If you look closely at the gate post you will see John Deere disc separators put to a use they were never designed for but then why should they be exempt from abuse?
This is what you do when there's a tree dead in the middle of the new fence line.
Some friends of ours moved into their new home. Most folks that are friends of ours expect me to make something for them versus us getting away easy with just buying them something. This couple has been married over fifty years. I just couldn't come up with something that I felt comfortable with. Then as I was doing something else with my hands while thoughts of them danced in my mind that line settled in.
When I get a potential customer and they give me the line about fences not staying straight in norte tejas blackland I send them over to look at this job. I did it in 89 which is more than a week ago. And it's relatively straight even today.
This gate is at a home of one of those dot com millionaires we have here in big D. The original gate that'd come with his house was just open pickets. He told me that he wanted something to give his pregnant wife a little privacy there at the pool. I told him to throw a beach towel over the gate. He told me he wanted me to come up with something and to put it down on paper so he could see what it would look like. I told him I couldn't draw. His secretary called a couple of weeks later and told me to do something that would look
Here's what he had originally
This is what he had after I was done.
Here's one of my favorite gates of all time. Not because it's so pretty or ornate or anything like that. It is just because it's so appropriate. He's a Dallas cop. She's a Dallas second grade school teacher. They'd bought ten acres and a home in the country. I was recommended to do the fence. He was scared to death that country folks were gonna stick it to him cause he was a total novice city slicker. Everything had to be explained twice and then he'd check on things and always seemed to be surprised when it was done just like I said it would. He'd paid for a straight gate but he'd continually hammered me for something unique. So in a weak moment I'd volunteered that I would do something. He was like a wife or a kid where a maybe is a promise if you know what I mean. I put a drill stem and cable fence around his ten acres. I was almost done and hadn't come up with anything yet. And every time we talked he was pumping me for what his gate was gonna look like. Then on a Monday I showed up at the job and he'd done a dog run for his rotteweilers. As I checked it out with all the empty sacks from sacrete here and there and the slab uneven and not sloped for drainage I just shook my head, rookies. Then I noticed a little scribbling over in one corner like kids do if they find fresh concrete and no mean adults around. It said "Marlon loves Maria". I instantly knew what the gate was gonna look like. I played the hard [censored] and kept mumbling about how I'd come up with something on the gate even after I had it made and painted. Then after the fence was all done I delivered it early on a Saturday morning. As I was unloading it off the trailer he came out in his robe and slippers. He had a grin you couldn't remove with a jackhammer. "Maria says you did good" was all he said and then walked back inside. That was worth more than the bucks.
This is another view of the brand fence. This customer had a section at the back of the house that he needed to keep his dogs from and he wanted it more than just a vinyl chainlink fence. He entertained there and wanted something unique. I uniqued. He liked it so much we uniqued up the drive and across the front. I'd mentioned that it would be a kewl thing to do something in the corner just to accent the fence and treatment. He told me he loved west Texas. So I came up with the fence in a fence idea and then ignored the west Texas thing and put in some trees. (grin)
Not all of my country gates are appropriate for animals.
I've motorized barrier gates before. If you're where electricity is a pain to get then you can go low voltage and a screw drive. You find enough space so the solar panel can get some daylight to trickle charge a deep cycle twelve volt and you're in business. It doesn't matter the weight of the gate below eight hundred pounds or so. What matters is the quality of the hinge post and the hinges. I've got gates out there that weigh fifteen hundred pounds on operators and they do fine. But the hinges cost me about a hundred and twenty dollars a pair and worth every dime. The low voltage operators are screw drives. The motor turns on and spins a screw that extends or retracts the arm. All the motor knows to do is to turn off and on. You push the button and it turns on spinning the shaft in one direction. It spins that shaft until the limit switch is activated and turns the motor off. Then you push the button again and it turns the motor on again but in the opposite direction. It stays on until it hits the other limit switch which turns it off. Nothing complicated at all about it. But the glitch is all that's holding that gate closed is that screw and the bracketry at the hinge post where the operator is anchored. What I've done when customers have wanted to have an additional bit of security is to have where the operator is attached to the gate to have it attached instead of a rod. The rod has a spring that is strong enough to hold the rod in place while the operator is moving it closed. When the gate hits home the spring is overcome and the rod goes an additional three inches. This three inches is the part of the rod that goes beyond the end of the gate into a receiver. Sorta like a deadbolt. When the gate is opened of course the first three inches of travel involve pulling the deadbolt section of the rod free. Then the gate itself starts moving. I know there's tons of folks who have operated gates and they're like stunned that this can happen cause no one ever told them it could. I had to figure it out myself. So I'm sure other folks have too. If you have electricity available to the gate then there are other options that are available. BTW I just installed a low voltage one operator on this gate. What is neat is they have a free exit feature. I've got it adjusted to he can exit free riding his lawn tractor even.
Those hinges are the greatest. If you're ever on 380 heading east (when we go to Arizona every fall on vacation we run up to 380 and turn left. It ends at I 25 in New Mexico. Lots faster and more interesting than I 40.) Anyway in Farmersville there's a tractor place on your right named Pinky's. If you turn right on that street and go back behind Pinky's you'll be in an industrial complex. You'll see Wylie Drilling. Check out their gates. It's a thirty eight foot opening with the gates reaching nine feet tall in the middle. They weigh about fifteen sixteen hundred pounds apiece. They're on those hinges. Remember what I said about hundred and eighty degree hinges so the gate when open can be folded back against the fence. If you use those hinges what you'll find is your post and your gate frame will be just about a half inch apart with the hinge being on the inside of the gate swing. You might start noticing something. Well you probably already have and have probably figured it out. But when you hit a gate or a corner you will see the fence hump up one panel back. The reason that happens is the gate post isn't deep enough to support the gate by itself. So the gate starts to pull on the post. The post starts to sink and push the bottom in away from the gate. This causes the top rail to hump up. It eventually lifts the second post back in line from the gate. Then you have the hump. The cure is a gate post with a hole too deep and having too much concrete. Too much is usually just enough. There used to be some boys here in North Texas that put in miles of pipe and cable. What they did was used sandline cable. It's like they use on cranes etc, braided like rope. They'd weld up one end. Then they'd pull it through the eyes on the line posts. The end post they'd have holes blown through where they could pull the cable on through. They'd pull it snug. Then they'd weld a large nut to the cable and cut off the cable. They'd tighten the cable by turning the nut. When they had it tight they'd weld the nut to the post. Then mother nature would wreck havoc. I don't know why but the cable would continue to tighten up. I went on one job they'd done where they'd had a winding drive. They'd pulled the cable through end to end without any stops. When the cable started self tightening it literally pulled the bottoms of the posts in towards a straight line. The ranch owner called me for an estimate for a repair. He almost had a coronary. I not only had to bid putting in a new fence. I had to bid removing the old one. But if you see a pipe and cable fence that's like a south Dallas paint job on a car (waving at you like you're family) check it out. Chances are it's that kind of installation. If you look around you'll see all these fences with expansion joints. I didn't know you were supposed to do that if you welded it up right. So I never did. By the time I found out I was doing it all wrong I noticed that all my fences just didn't seem to need it. On your question about pulling the bow out between posts above in "Projects". In your mind imagine the pattern left if your favorite female movie star planted a kiss on the top rail dead over a post. A wet open mouthed kiss. Now take your torch and make that lipstick pattern red. And then go on down to the next post. You're a sick puppy thinking thoughts like that. Keep in mind, when you heat it up it's going exaggerate the problem. It's when it cools off that it does all the work. While it's on my mind. I've meant to mention it to you a couple of times and have lost the thought. When I build a fence for horses especially and other livestock too. I try to avoid ninety degree corners. This is especially true the smaller the pen. When an animal feels cornered and reacts accordingly is when they hurt themselves or whatever's got them into that position.
Here's how I set my posts. Since I work by myself or with a day laborer I usually use a string if the lines are short. If they're longer what I will do is temporarily stand up plumb marker posts. One at each end and one in the middle. The middle one I place by stabbing it into the ground. I go back to the closest end and then sight down the side. I keep moving the middle post in and out until when I sight down the side of the end post towards the other end post I can't see it because of the middle post. I will then start at one corner and with upside down paint if the ground is hard or with a claw hammer if it's soft I'll mark off lines perpendicular to the fence line on eight foot centers. If when I get to the other end I'll stop about thirty feet away and measure. I will then try to divide that measurement so that I have less than eight but an even number. Sometimes I have to come back more than thirty feet to get that number but what I'm after is not a short section at the corner. That screams to even the varmints that either a rookie or someone who didn't have much pride set those posts! Once I have the eight foot centers marked I pick up a pair of post hole diggers. I hold them from the tops of the handles over the mark. I look down one side. I move the diggers making sure I'm holding them by the handles high so that they're hanging plumb in and out until the edge of the diggers lines up with the center marker post and the one at the far end. When they line up just perfect. You'll know. I drop the diggers and they will leave a mark. If I am using paint I will mark across my eight foot center mark with the paint. I do this over each mark. Now when I hit the marker post I turn around and sight back to the other end post. What is important is if I sighted down the north side of the line even though I'm looking back the other way I make sure I'm sighting down the north side. I dig my holes. Now what you might want to keep in mind is the width of your posts and allow for the placement of the center of your auger accordingly. In other words if you're posts are two and a half inches o.d. and you're going to leave your original marker posts up to help with your setting (good idea) you might want to center your auger an inch over so that it's center of the post line and not center of the north edge of the fence line. I set my corner posts. I set them one inch higher than nominal fence height. I use a marker that will contrast with the post to mark down the diameter of the toprail plus the one inch. I make a nice horizontal line that is easy to see at a distance. I knock down the center marker post and get it out of my way. I go to the second post in line from the end I'm going to start setting. I line it up the same way I did the marking post. BTW the posts are always lined up with a torpedo level holding them plumb! And don't use the magnetic side! The devil will get you for that! Actually what will happen is if you're not triple careful you'll pull your post out of plumb removing the level. I will usually put a little mixed concrete in that second post to hold it in place while I set it. Again, plumb it up, check it, move it plumb, check it, etc. When it's dead on where when you look down the side you can't see the other end post unless you move your eye a half inch off line you're doing good. Fill the hole with concrete. Since you're doing livestock fence I suggest leaving the concrete down four to six inches from the top of the hole. The livestock will walk the fence line. If the path they wear down erodes the dirt around your post and the concrete is higher then you have a potential hazard to them. And if they don't wear it down and you weed eat it will save you string hitting the smooth pipe versus the ragged concrete. Now you have the second post set for line. Go back to your near end post. Hold your plumb for level at your line you made. Sight over the top of the level towards your other end. What you're wanting to see is the bottom of your saddle and just barely your corresponding mark on the other end post. Did I mention you presaddle all your posts? I should have. You move up and down the second post until it's perfect. Each time you move it you check if for line. I know it sounds busy but you only have to do this one time a line. Once it's perfect then you go to post between your second post and your near corner or end. Holding that post plumb with your torpedo level you move it in and out of line until you can see either nothing of the far end post or just a hair of it. You put your concrete in the hole. Now you double check your post for line and pull it up for height. What you're looking for is to barely see that horizontal line over the bottom of the saddle of the post your'e setting. When it's perfect you step around the post and look back at the other end to verify it's perfect that direction too. When that one's perfect then you're home free. All the rest of it's pure work plain and simple. You pick up your third line post and sight over the saddle when it's plumb and in line towards your near corner or end. When it's perfect you step back to your previous post and double check it by looking down over it to the far end. This might sound like too much work and too complicated. I have folks all the time tell me that it's too hard when it's so easy to stretch a string and set all the posts high. Then you come back and stretch another string tight mark your posts and cut them all with a torch and then saddle them with the torch and a sure cut. You can usually see when they've done that. The fence will have a bow because any wind that blows will catch string. It also so sags so you will see where the middle of the section is slightly lower than the ends. I spend fifty percent longer setting my posts this way than they do with the string. But when it's time to come back welding in I have perfect saddles dead in line for height and line. I just lay in my top rail and weld it in. I'm done before they are and my job looks a hundred times better. If the customer wouldn't know the difference then they're not the kind of customer I want anyway. I like working with picky people. Picky people appreciate quality. Sometimes you have to educate them but generally they're capable of learning too. I once was just cleaning up from setting a line about four hundred feet long. An old boy drove up, got out of his truck, looked down the saddles, and shook his head. I don't think I ever really convinced him that I'd done it all by eye. To this day I'm sure he'll tell you I am the best man he ever seen with a string. But setting posts this way is a good metaphor on life. The whole secret to a perfectly straight line is making sure each post is perfect and then leaving it to go to the next. It's sorta funny how if you've made sure each one is perfect then when you get to the end it's all perfect and it was done one at a time. Sorry for the lengthy diatribe. But there's few things finer than looking down a straight line of posts and knowing that you're the luckiest guy on the planet.
It's a lot faster than it sounds. Actually even with using lots and lots of concrete I can set thirty to forty posts a day all by myself. That's laying out, digging holes, settin' them in concrete. With a good helper I can easily double that. But good helpers usually only last one day. (grin) I've been in love with lasers for years. I have a David White Transit that's not getting much use cause I have a good rotary I use for setting grade on a lot of jobs. Have you got one of those good laser torpedo levels with the three way lights? I love it. I can shoot a perfect ninety without the old three four five and over a point too. In the old days of laying out a wood fence on uneven terrain the fence foreman would set up on one post and shooting over his torpedo level sight in a grade mark to the helper at each post. Then I got my transit and found out it was so much easier. Then I got the rotary laser and got rid of the help. I can set that puppy up in the middle and walk around with the target marking each post. And once you have a reference mark the rest of it's junior high math. What you might find interesting is how we set posts like for a tennis court. The corners and ends are set at twelve foot. The lines are set three and a half inches shorter to allow for the top rail. Most folks set posts high and then send a helper around with a ladder and a portaband after the grades are shot to cut the posts. We do it different. We sight them in for line and height. Since I'm only five eight looking over a post twelve feet high is a mite of a problem. So I make a mark down six and a half feet with a sharpie for the ends and corners and six feet two and a half inches down for the lines. We use the sharpie lines for setting height. Once you get used to it you feel sorry for the guys on the ladders with the portaband. I have a theory about sharing what you know about work. It's just the thing to do. And I've been most fortunate in that I've had the pleasure of working with some of the pickiest customers and craftsmen in the world I do believe. And even though each event was painfull from one perspective the lesson learned was always invaluable. I try to keep the enthusiasm for work up for myself and for others. I look at these young guys and man there's been times I wished I'd had someone like me to hang out with. I could have learned all he knew in a short period of time and been off to conquer the world. The biggest problem I see today is very few people understand what quality is. And it's not their fault. They have no reference point from which to start. Used to be your father would be a craftsman. He might not know squat about any other trade but he knew quality in his own. And that point of reference gave him a perspective from which to judge other trades. He knew good work when he saw it. These dot com millionaires and the tech kids have to be educated by us. A couple of years ago a neighbor came to me and asked about a fence like mine. I explained that the best thing to do was to allow me to help him buy the materials at my cost and I'd give him the name of some guys who were production fencemen that did okay work. He came back wanting a fence like mine or one of the ones he'd heard I built in the city. I shaved the cost a bit cause he was a neighbor and gave him a quote. He gave me the job. This young man was a techie making very decent money. But the reason I got the job is his father came in from out of town to visit. The kid showed him around. His dad told him to go with quality. His dad educated him and I benefited. But without him being educated he'd never spent twice the price for a fence that his friends would have.
Here's another view of that gate. This is one of those crazy hairs gone wild. This customer told me to do what I wanted as long as someway somehow I integrated that map of Texas with their name in it his wife had purchased at a craft fair. About that time I'd had a dream about a customer calling me out to do an entryway made to looke like tinker toys. You know the sticks with the wheels with the holes. So as an experiment I did the overhead like this just for grins. It didn't turn out as well as I liked but it did fit in my criteria of being one of a kind, character flaw, first to admit it.
Another view
I'd built this gate for this old boy about ten years ago. He'd put it on some telephone posts and all was well. Then times got better for him so he had me come back and make him this entryway. He had some hay rake wheels and all was fine. Then he came up one day and let me know he wanted some wagon wheels. He was gonna get some and have me weld them up on his over head for looks. Awhile passed and then one day he came up and told me he couldn't find any wheels. I offered to make them. He shoulda known right? I put it on the round to it list and more time passed. I made the wheels. He was happier than a pup all alone with it's mom and it being dinner time. Then I explained I didn't like just hot gluing (welding) the wheels up on the overhead. It needed something. One day I glanced over at one of my junk piles and there amongst that stack was these old wheelbarrow handles. It went down hill from there. If you look real close on that water barrel you will see a Coors Light can flattened out. Believe it or not his wife thinks it's cute.
Another view or two