Each welded intersection of this gate was cleaned with a grinder or hand-filed.

Deck-plate steps lead up to Scott Brunsdon's clean-design welded steel front gate.

Weekend welders have a tendency to eventually work on one of several projects that, generally, can be classed as The Hot Rod, The Weld Cart or The Grill. There are also many who augment their homes with welded steel fencing and gates that range from the functional to the artistic.

Scott Brunsdon of Sydney, Australia, built an interesting gate that appeared last year on the Welding Web Internet community(www.weldingweb.com). Brundson said that the 5-ft. high assembly began with the shortened and narrowed frame of another gate. Using an existing assembly saved Brundson the additional work of fitting in a lock mechanism. "It's not a great lock. Somebody determined to get in could just jump the gate. It's a lock to keep honest people out," he said.

Brundson's wife, an artistwho has studied and taught design, sketched the gate'sinterior fill pattern on paper in full scale. Brundson thentransferred the design to a sheet of wood, set the gateframe on top, and began to form each fill piece from 16mm by 3 mm flat stock (about .630 in. by .118 in.),bending the curves over a clay pot he found in his yard.

Each piece then was notched halfway through at each intersection, in the fashion of a wooden eggcrate. Brundson says that the process was the most difficult part of the construction, particularly where pieces crossed one another at an angle other than 90 degrees. Additionally, he said pieces that had more than several notches became pretty unstable and were easily bent out of shape.

After welding all the pieces together, Brundson found that his grinder could not get into each and every joint. Not wanting to have anything less than a clean look on his front gate, Scott spent three hours hand-filing the remaining welds.

Total time spent on construction? Sixteen hours, with less than $40 US spent on materials — another argument in favor of beginning with an existing gate. The resulting look is one that would be unique and appealing for most homeowners; however, Brundson does not seem inclined to go into the gate-building business anytime soon.