Project number 2 , Worntorn, Driveway gates, stone posts and planters.

[worntorn]

Attachment 2340This was a home mega project I did some years ago. It started when my dog got out on the road and was hit by a car. I thought, "how difficult could it be to whip up some automatic driveway gates?"

Very difficult is the answer. I got a bit carried away with the design and added granite posts, curved caps (made a special mould and hand poured 1 cap per day), flower planters and a built in irrigation system.
I built the gate operators as well, that was a project in itself. I did get several good jobs from the gate project and the gates have worked well to keep all dogs off the road.

All of the stone is 4" thick Granite and is backed by reinforced concrete. The total concrete pour was 27 cubic metres. When I started in housing in the 70s we were pouring most complete house foundations with less than 10 metres!
So I spent a long time forming it all, especially with the curves involved . A Buddy did the stone work in exchange for some furniture building.

The picture shows the Norton in one driveway. There is a matching setup on the next driveway which goes to the shop. I think I worked fulltime on this project for about two months, long hours too as I recall. I was so long on this that funds were running low by the end of it due to all of the paying jobs that had been deferred or passed up while I toiled on the gates. The actual fabbing of the gates was a relatively small part of the overall job.

Glen