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Custom gate fabrication
A driveway gate is a small cantilevered structure that swings on two points and stands in the weather for twenty years. We build them in our own shop, from drawings, sized for the span and the wind — because the alternative is a gate that looks right on install day and sags by year three.
Why we run a shop
Most gate companies place an order. We cut steel.
Gate Tech Pros is the gate division of Trait LLC, a structural steel and metal fabrication company. That is not a marketing distinction — it changes what is possible on a job.
When a customer needs a twenty-two foot cantilever leaf, a repair to a hinge stile that was welded badly in 2009, a bracket that does not exist as a catalog part, or a gate that matches masonry columns built to no standard dimension, an installer places an order and waits. We put it on the table and build it.
It also means structural repair is genuinely on the menu. A racked frame, a cracked weld, a corroded post, or a bent leaf gets cut out and rebuilt rather than declared a total loss.
- Swing leaves, slide gates, and cantilever assemblies
- Pedestrian gates matched to a vehicle entrance
- Ranch entries, columns, wing fence, and pipe rail
- Structural repair of existing gates and posts
- Custom brackets, adapters, and mounting hardware
- Ornamental and architectural steel
Shop welding — Trait LLC fabrication
Process
Drawings before steel, every time
STEP 01
Site measure
Actual clear opening, post positions, grade across the swing path, wind exposure, and where power is. Not the dimension on a plan — the dimension on the ground.
STEP 02
Drawing & approval
Panel layout, picket spacing, frame sizing, hinge and post details, and where operator hardware mounts. You approve it before anything is cut.
STEP 03
Fabrication & finish
Cut, fit, and weld complete, then hot-dip galvanize the finished assembly so the zinc reaches the welds and the inside of the tube. Color coat over that.
STEP 04
Install & commission
Footings, posts, gate, operator, safety devices. Then the safety system is tested to UL 325 before we hand it over.
The drawing earns its keep
It is what catches the rail sitting exactly where the operator arm needs to mount, the picket spacing that will not divide evenly across the opening, and the infill density that presents more wind area than the posts should carry. Those are cheap problems on paper and expensive ones in steel.
Engineering the leaf
What keeps a gate true for twenty years
A long gate leaf carries its own weight out from the hinge with nothing supporting the far end. Everything about whether it holds its shape is decided before it is built.
- Frame member sizing set by span and infill weight, not habit
- Diagonal bracing designed into the pattern rather than added later
- Hinges rated for the actual leaf weight with real margin
- Posts and footings sized for overturning, not just vertical load
- Infill density checked against wind exposure at that entrance
- Operator selected alongside the gate, not bolted on afterwards
Solid-infill gates on open ground are the classic failure. A gate that is effectively a sail, hung on hardware sized for a picket leaf, will twist at the hinge and pull the post out of plumb.
Finish
Galvanize the assembly, then coat it
Welding burns away whatever coating is on the steel, at exactly the joints that carry the most load and hold the most water. Fabricating from pre-galvanized tube and welding it leaves the zinc missing where it matters most.
Hot-dip galvanizing the completed assembly puts zinc on the welds, the cut ends, and the inside of the tube. Powder coat over galvanizing gives you the color you want with sacrificial corrosion protection underneath, so a chip in the finish does not become a rust origin.
Crash-rated gate — Texas substation
Fabrication questions
Common questions
Can you match a gate we already have?
Usually. Send straight-on and angled photos plus overall dimensions and picket spacing if you can get it. Fabricated steel patterns we can reproduce. Cast ornamental components from a discontinued manufacturer line are the hard case — sometimes we can approximate them with fabricated equivalents and sometimes we cannot, and we will tell you which before you are committed.
How long does a custom gate take?
Drawing and approval, fabrication, finishing, then installation. Finishing usually sets the schedule, because hot-dip galvanizing and powder coating happen at outside facilities running their own queues. We will give you a real schedule at quote, including where the float is, rather than an optimistic one you find out about later.
Can you build to an architect's or engineer's drawings?
Yes. Trait LLC does structural steel and holds federal contracting experience, so working from a specification, producing shop drawings, and running a submittal process is normal work for us rather than an exception.
Do you install what you build, or do we need a separate installer?
We do both, and we would rather do both. When one company builds the gate and another automates it, the operator gets mounted wherever it fits instead of to a point designed into the frame. That said, if you have your own installer we will fabricate to their requirements.
Have something built
Custom gates, ranch entries, structural repair, and ornamental steel — from drawings.