How to Manufacture Heavy Duty Hinges from Channel Iron

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There are many kinds of heavy duty gate hinges on the market. You can choose between bullet hinges, bolt on hinges and more.

However, if you are manufacturing a heavy duty gate that will have an angle iron or square tube frame, these channel iron hinges are a simple, heavy duty option you can create yourself. Here's how they work.

Choose Your Channel Iron

One of the reason these hinges are such a great choice for your heavy duty gate hinges is that channel iron is available in a huge array of sizes. So you can choose your material to suit the gate size and weight.

Cut To Size

Usually, your channel iron hinges will be narrower than the gate frame they are being welded onto. If you have to manufacture many hinges, you could use a jig for cutting, so that you can cut many hinges in a short amount of time.

Drill Holes

These very simple heavy duty hinges use an ordinary hex bolt as the hinge pin, which also means you can choose the size of the bolt based on the weight of the gate and the size of your hinge. You will need to drill holes in both hinge pieces, so that you can pass the bolt through the top and bottom of both.

Weld Threaded Rod

This type of heavy duty gate hinge is designed to be bolted through a gate post - usually an IPE gate post or an angle iron gate post, however, you could use a round or square tubing post with a welded bracket for the threaded rod, if you want to avoid drilling through the post.

The threaded rod will go through the post or bracket, and then you can use a hex nut on either side of the post or bracket to adjust the hinge and hold it in place.

Galvanize

One of the biggest benefits of this kind of heavy duty channel iron hinges is you can pre weld them to your gate frame before you hot dip galvanize it, so you can protect the hinges too. It's advisable to avoid getting zinc on the threaded rod on the post hinge though!

Secure Bolts

Of course, hex bolts are not the most secure type of bolt out there, but you can fix that problem quite easily by damaging the thread of the bolt. Another option is to add a second bolt at the very end of the bolt shaft, and then tack welding it in place. You could also choose to use a breakaway nut or some other kind of security nut.

A Simple, Affordable Design

As you can see, as far as heavy duty hinges go, this channel iron heavy duty hinge design is very simple and uses materials that are readily available. The design can be adapted to a variety of gate and post sizes, and you can download a sketch here.