How to Hang a Farm Gate

Progressive Farmer How to Hang a Farm Gate Hi, I am Dan Miller senior editor with Progressive Farmer Magazine. Today we are going to talk about one of the more common jobs around the farm and that is hanging a gate to walk us through the process. This is Alicia Hamman, she is our fencing expert today. Dan: Alicia what are we going to do Alicia: Well first, we will go and talk about the braces that we already got installed making sure that they are sturdy and then we are going to talk about how to install the gate. Dan: What is the string for? Alicia: Well, the first thing we do is we set the string that way we can get our line straight to set our post. Right here at the braces that I was talking about earlier. Well, the first thing Dan that you want to do is to take inconsideration the line in the ground. You want to set the post on the high side of the ground to keep your gate from dragging. Dan: What is this piece for? Alicia: This is our brace pull. This adds sturdiness to the fence and to the gate. Dan: And what do you do with this? Alicia: This is our landscape spike. We use this to connect the brace pull. Dan: We are about to snap a line, why do we do that? Alicia: Well first, so that we can draw the hole and put our hinges and make sure our gate is going to hang level. Dan: And you are putting the slide right down at the center of the pole? Alicia: Exactly. Dan: Raised, have it? Alicia: Yap, good job. Dan: We have strapped that center line, now what? Alicia: Well now, Jim, my husband is going to bring the gate in so that we can mark the post and drill the holes. Dan will you help us with this gate real quick so I can look at it, get it level, put a mark on the post, so we can drill the holes for hinges. Jim is now drilling the hole for the bottom hinge. To establish the where the hole will go on the top. Dan: We have got two of kinds of hinges here, besides the sizes are different. Why is there a difference between the two? Alicia: Well this one comes with the gate and this one is a little sturdier and this is what we are going to use. Our next step is to measure form the bottom of the bottom hinge to the top of the top hinge to establish our top hole. Next step is hanging the gate. As you’ll notice the top hinge is facing down. This adds for security so that nobody can remove the gate off the hinges. Dan: This type of hinge also makes it easier to level the gate. Now we are going to set the post for the other gate right? Alicia: Right and to do you are going to hold your side up like what you are doing. Jim holds his so that we will get it level and make sure that our hole is drilled where it needs to be. It looks like it is going to be fine to set that post and then we can go from there. To set the post, we pour the concrete and dry so we can top it and get it tighter. Dan: We have hanged the other half of this fence, now what are we going to do? They are not exactly in alignment. Alicia: Well this is where the adjustable hinges come in and Jim is going to show us how to do that. Now what I do is hold the gate up until it is level, Jim is going to tighten the both up. I will stand up and look at it and see what we got. Dan; I would like to say thanks to Jim and Alicia Hamman for the work in putting up this gate today. They have been fencing for 18 years. Now you may have some ideas if you are on both. But we are hoping that you get some tips away from this project. If you are interested in this project, you can either go to progressivefarmers.com quick on projects you can do.