Gate Upright

Abstract

This invention is directed toward a fence gate kit, comprising two or more uprights that create a slot between an outer plane and an inner plane, and several horizontal rails, that slide into the slot. The uprights are nestled between a top frame and a bottom frame, and the rails are glued into place at the proper spacing within the uprights. Screws or bolts can optionally be also used to secure the rails in place.

Description

STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT

This invention was not federally sponsored.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Field of the Invention

This invention relates to the general field of fences and gates, and more specifically toward a gate kit that allows for the creation of a substantially stronger gate that is more aesthetically pleasing as it avoids the external welding of joints that are commonly used today. Because the gate parts fit together, there is no need to paint each part, then re-paint over the welded areas.

By way of a quick summary of the invention, the fence gate kit comprises two or more uprights that create a slot between an outer plane and an inner plane, and several horizontal rails, that slide into the slot. The uprights are nestled between a top frame and a bottom frame, and the rails are glued into place at the proper spacing within the uprights. Screws or bolts can optionally be also used to secure the rails in place. The length and width of the upper and lower frames, and the uprights, can be determined by the user, as well as the spacing of the rails, giving the gate kit a truly universal adaptability.

Problem Solved

Current gates have a huge issue that they can not be micro fabricated without welding the outer wall. This means the coating must be removed or the gate must be made before coating, then coated with paint or powder coat. This poses an issue if the materials are purchased pre coated from the manufacturing or extrusion company. What happens is the gates will not be coated in the same place as post and fence sections (the panel installed between the posts that are installed in the ground). This will result in weathering over time at different rates. It is common to have a lifetime warranty and such an issue can result in warranty claims. One such cure is the manufacture that put the coating on the extrusions can do the gate manufacturing but with several styles, heights and colors this will result in massive inventory that would need to be stored and becomes price prohibited. So only large manufactures can have capital to house a large enough painting or powder coating line to make this feasible for in house coating of all the extrusions so that everything weathers the same. By creating a gate the can be made from a kit that the welding or gluing used would not interfere with the life of the gate coating because the method of attachment is located inside the upright internal walls away from the areas that will cause degrading of the coating from the original manufacture. This allows the extrusion company to just sell extrusions pre coated and the micro manufacture or customer can cut the material and make any gate from these special uprights extrusions that have the inner channel or inner walls.

Thus, there has existed a long-felt need for a gate kit that allows for the sturdy, quick, and inexpensive creation of a wide variety of gate sizes and shapes, without resorting to welding. The current invention provides just such a solution by having a fence gate kit, comprising two or more uprights that create a slot between an outer plane and an inner plane, and several horizontal rails, that slide into the slot. The uprights are nestled between a top frame and a bottom frame, and the rails are glued into place at the proper spacing within the uprights. Screws or bolts can optionally be also used to secure the rails in place.

There has thus been outlined, rather broadly, certain embodiments of the invention in order that the detailed description thereof may be better understood, and in order that the present contribution to the art may be better appreciated. There are additional features that will be described hereinafter and which will form the subject matter of the claims appended hereto. The features listed herein and other features, aspects and advantages of the present disclosure will become better understood with reference to the following description and appended claims.

STATEMENT OF THE INVENTION

Accordingly, one aspect the invention includes a fence gate kit which can be adapted to building a gate fence of a variety of sizes, with rails of a variety of spacing gaps.

Preferably, the fence gate kit provides an upper frame, a lower frame, two uprights for each side of the gate, and a number of rails.

Preferably, a purchaser of the gate fence kit can have the frames and uprights pre-cut to his/her preference, such that the gate is the exact size desired.

Preferably the user can slide in an appropriate number of rails to provide a gap spacing similar to the rest of the fence.

Ideally, the user can secure the rails through glue, with the option of also adding a screw to provide quick and additional security.

Another aspect of the invention is the ability to attach frames and rails to uprights without destroying the finish. The way gates are made today, there is excessive external welding which is very difficult to paint over and have the new paint stick to the weld and resist rust.

A further advantage of this invention is that in moving the weld or the method of attachment from the outside wall to inside the rail to protect pre coated extrusions (and not require repainting of any external welded areas), the invention provides a kit that allows gates to be assembled in a small fabrication facility that lacks the ability to coat the extrusions with the same quality of finish coating paint or powder coating.

Another advantage of this gate kit is that in moving the method of attachment to the inside of the upright rather than relying on welds on the outside, the resulting product has stronger joints and eliminates flex in the face of the upright, thereby allowing thinner profiles to be used resulting in less supportive bracing on the gate and an overall lighter and cost-effective gate.

The versatility of the gate kit also allows for an upright member to have more than one inner walls to create new locations for attachment of rails, (horizontal extrusions), such that a user of the invention need only decide on how many rails there are and the location of the rails, and he/can be create a custom gate with no external welds.

Another aspect of the invention is that the channel created in the uprights by the inner box beams “locks” the horizontal member or frame member such that it can rotate only vertically and not horizontally, thereby enhancing the rigidness of the gate and making it significantly stronger that the prior art gates.

A further aspect of the invention is to allow design micro fabrication facilities to fabricate custom gates without the fear of creating gates that will weather at a dissimilar rate to the rest of the fence, as is the case where there is a gate with external welds. This gate kit allows a micro fabricator to create a gate that will not degrade the extrusion coating when manufacturing the gate.

There has thus been outlined, rather broadly, the more important features of the invention in order that the detailed description thereof may be better understood, and in order that the present contribution to the art may be better appreciated. There are additional features of the invention that will be described hereinafter and which will form the subject matter of the claims appended hereto. The features listed herein and other features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with reference to the following description and appended claims. The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention.

It should be understood the while the preferred embodiments of the invention are described in some detail herein, the present disclosure is made by way of example only and that variations and changes thereto are possible without departing from the subject matter coming within the scope of the following claims, and a reasonable equivalency thereof, which claims I regard as my invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and form a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the disclosure and together with the description, serve to explain the principles of this invention. One preferred form of the invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a series of exploded views showing how the frames and uprights are assembled.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of how the rails fit into the slot created by the uprights.

FIG. 3 is front view of a fence gate in its finished form, according to a preferred form of the invention.

FIG. 4 is a top and perspective view of the upright profile of the invention.

FIG. 5 is a series of views of the inner attachment method.

FIG. 6 is a series of views of the second stage of the inner attachment method.

FIG. 7 is a series of views showing the standard method of attaching a rail to an upright.

FIG. 8 is a top view of an upright profile.

FIG. 9 is a series of views of how screws can be used to provide additional security to the invention.

FIG. 10 is a side view showing the pressure on a standard, surface-mounted fence rail.

FIG. 11 is perspective, sequential view of a rail being attached to a gate upright and secured.

FIG. 12 is perspective view of two views of a fence being constructed from a rail being inserted into a gate upright at different angles.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

Many aspects of the invention can be better understood with references made to the drawings below. The components in the drawings are not necessarily drawn to scale. Instead, emphasis is placed upon clearly illustrating the components of the present invention. Moreover, like reference numerals designate corresponding parts through the several views in the drawings. Before explaining at least one embodiment of the invention, it is to be understood that the embodiments of the invention are not limited in their application to the details of construction and to the arrangement of the components set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings. The embodiments of the invention are capable of being practiced and carried out in various ways. In addition, the phraseology and terminology employed herein are for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting.

FIG. 1 is a series of exploded views showing how the frames 1 and uprights 2 are assembled.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of how the rails fit into the slot created by the uprights. The rail 3 is secured between the Inner Wall Panel 4 and the Outer Wall Panel 5. The Inner Wall Panel 4 and the Outer Wall Panel 5 make up an “upright” 2 on either side of the ends of the rail 3.

FIG. 3 is front view of a fence gate in its finished form, according to a preferred form of the invention. Two frames 1, hold the uprights 2 in place. Several rails 3 have been slid into a slot in the uprights 2, and have been secured in place by glue and/or screws. Alternatively, or in addition, the securing can be done with screws, as more fully illustrated in FIG. 9.

FIG. 4 is a top and perspective view of the upright profile of the invention. The horizontal rail fits into a hole cut in the upright. The rail is secured on either side by the inner walls of the upright, so it can only rotate up and down. The design of the upright is more fully shown in FIG. 8.

FIG. 5 is a series of views of the inner attachment method. The horizontal rail fits into a hole cut in the upright. The rail is secured on either side by the inner walls of the upright, so it can only rotate up and down. The design of the upright is more fully shown in FIG. 8.

FIG. 6 is a series of views of the second stage of the inner attachment method. The part of the rail and enters the hole in the upright is secured with glue, epoxy, or another known means of attachment.

FIG. 7 is a series of views showing the standard method of attaching a rail to an upright. Note how the rail has to be welded to the upright. There are several problems with this approach. First, should the weld fail, there is nothing to hold the rail in place, resulting in a structural failure of that portion of the fence. Second, the entire fence unit has to be painted, and often, because some paints do not stick to welded areas as well as they do to extruded metal, repainted again to cover up the rust from the weld.

FIG. 8 is a top view of an upright profile showing how a rail could be fitted securely between the two inner box beams, thereby allowing it to only rotate in a vertical—and not horizontal—direction.

FIG. 9 is a series of views of how screws can be used to provide additional security to the invention. In this figure, the rail can be glued, or not glued inside the upright. Screws are then used to prevent vertical rotation once the angle between the rails and the upright is reached.

FIG. 10 is a side view showing the pressure on a standard, surface-mounted fence rail. FIG. 10 shows that a rail welded to an upright face causes this warping in the face of the upright if the upright wall thickness is not great enough. This creates sag in the gate which has to be mitigated with support bracing. With the current design this will not happen. Also the common method of attachment of a rail to an upright is outside the upright face to face welded. With the current design, the method of attachment is inside. Due to this innovation, a user could weld the 4 corners inside and still not have to repair the coating or paint over it.

FIG. 11 is perspective, sequential view of a rail being attached to a gate upright and secured.

FIG. 12 is perspective view of two views of a fence being constructed from a rail being inserted into a gate upright at different angles.

FIGS. 11 and 12 show another embodiment in which the vertical member of the gate forms a triple box with a plurality of parallel flat sides. In this embodiment, a hole is cut or punched in a gate upright with a center box beam on one side creates slot, where the inner walls form additional surfaces which maximizes surface area. The maximized surface provides additional adhesion surface to provide a better way to bind the rail at a certain angle.

The key to this embodiment is that this upright extrusion is unique as it forms a triple box beam that when a hole is cut in into the center box beam on one side this creates slot that a rail that has flat sides to maximize the surface to surface area of the inner walls of the uprights to the legs of the u-channel rail. With the slot acting as it own box beam that is further strengthened by the two outer box beams this maximizes rigidness of the horizontal position with respect to the upright. By comprising two or more locations per upright upon with a minimum of one location per upper and lower frame in which a minimum of two uprights with a upper and lower inner joint forms the minimum four joint location to comprise a weld free gate. That any method of attachment internally that bonds the face of the leg of the rail to the face of the inner wall by one or two sides freezes the rail from being vertically rotatable to the position that was frozen in allowing gates to be frozen in many positions along the vertical axis allowing for gates to be biased to follow uneven terrain. This method of attaching rails to uprights without weldment increases the life of the metal and its strength because it was never heated to melting temperatures. So effectively the material is the same as when it is manufactured. By maintaining the material unheated the rating of the material is not altered by the manufacturing process.

In a first embodiment, the invention comprises a fence gate kit that comprises a gate upright, a rail, and an attachment, where the gate upright has a right box beam, a left box beam, and a center box beam, where the gate upright also comprises a hole, where the rail has a rail shape, and the hole has a hole shape, and the rail shape fits into the hole shape, where once the rail is inserted into the hole, the rail rotates at a rail rotate angle, where the rail rotate angle is adjusted to a desired angle, at which point it is secured by the attachment, where the hole is rectangular or square in shape, and where the attachment can be glue, welding, or screws.

In a second embodiment, the invention provides a fence gate kit which comprises two frames, an upper frame and a lower frame, two uprights, each upright comprising an inner wall panel and an outer wall panel, and a plurality of rails, where one upright is attached to a first end of the upper frame, and a first end of the lower frame, and where the other upright is attached to a second end of the upper frame and a second end of the lower frame, where for each upright, the inner wall panel and the outer wall panel create an upright gap with a gap distance, where the plurality of rails have a rail width, and where the rail width is slightly smaller than the gap distance, and where each rail is slide into the upright gap of each upright,

where each of the plurality of rails is spaced from a next rail by a rail gap. Glue, screws or welding could be used to secure the plurality of rails to the uprights. It is also contemplated that each upright can have more than one inner wall, created by one or more inner box beams, and could additionally comprise a webbing, where the webbing prevents an end of a frame member from extending beyond an outer wall of the upright.

In this second embodiment, it is also contemplated that one or more frames can be secured within one or more uprights without the use of external welding and without damage to the finish of the uprights, frames, or rails. The frames can be secured within the uprights by screws, internal welding, external welding, or glue. No matter what the means of attachment, all connections between uprights and frames, and frames and rails, are internal such that the current state-of-the-art methods which require external welding, screws or bolts, which then either increase the speed at which rust appears on the gate, or requires that the entire gate portion is re-painted, such that all connections between uprights and frames, and frames and rails, are accomplished without damage to the finish coating on any of the uprights, frames, and rails, and accomplished without the use of supportive bracing or external welds.

In one version of this embodiment, the number of inner box beams in an upright is two, and the inner box beams form a channel into which a frame member fits, and the channel is blocked at one end with a webbing, and the frame member can rotate only in a vertical direction, as the box beams and the resulting channel prevent any horizontal movement of the frame member, where the lack of any horizontal movement results in a stronger and more rigid gate, where the lack of external welding creates a resulting gate where all parts of the resulting gate will weather at the same rate.

It should be understood that while the preferred embodiments of the invention are described in some detail herein, the present disclosure is made by way of example only and that variations and changes thereto are possible without departing from the subject matter coming within the scope of the following claims, and a reasonable equivalency thereof, which claims I regard as my invention. Indeed, it will be apparent to one of skill in the art how alternative functional configurations can be utilized to implement the desired features of the present invention. Additionally, with regard to flow diagrams, operational descriptions and method claims, the order in which the steps are presented herein shall not mandate that various embodiments be implemented to perform the recited functionality in the same order unless the context dictates otherwise.

Although the disclosure herein is described in terms of various exemplary embodiments and implementations, it should be understood that the various features, aspects and functionality described in one or more of the individual embodiments are not limited in their applicability to the particular embodiment with which they are described, but instead can be applied, alone or in various combinations, to one or more of the other embodiments, whether or not such embodiments are described and whether or not such features are presented as being a part of a described embodiment. Thus, the breadth and scope of the present invention should not be limited by any of the above-described exemplary embodiments.

All of the material in this patent document is subject to copyright protection under the copyright laws of the United States and other countries. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in official governmental records but, otherwise, all other copyright rights whatsoever are reserved.

REFERENCE NUMBERS USED

• 1. Frame
• 2. Upright
• 3. Rail
• 4. Inner Wall Panel
• 5. Outer Wall Panel.
• 6. Inner Box Beam
• 7. Webbing
• 8. Screw

Claims

1. A fence gate kit, consisting of a gate upright, a rail, and an attachment, where the gate upright has a right box beam, a left box beam, and a center box beam, where the gate upright also comprises a hole, where the rail has a rail shape, and the hole has a hole shape, and the rail shape fits into the hole shape, where once the rail is inserted into the hole, the rail rotates at a rail rotate angle, where the rail rotate angle is adjusted to a desired angle, at which point it is secured by the attachment.

2. The fence gate kit of claim 1, where the hole is rectangular in shape.

3. The fence gate kit of claim 1, where the hole is square in shape.

4. The fence gate kit of claim 1, where the attachment is selected from the group consisting of glue, welding, and screws.

5. The fence gate kit of claim 1, where the attachment is glue.

6. A fence gate kit, comprising: two frames, and upper frame and a lower frame, two uprights, each upright comprising an inner wall panel and an outer wall panel, and a plurality of rails, where one upright is attached to a first end of the upper frame, and a first end of the lower frame, and where the other upright is attached to a second end of the upper frame and a second end of the lower frame, where for each upright, the inner wall panel and the outer wall panel create an upright gap with a gap distance, where the plurality of rails have a rail width, and where the rail width is slightly smaller than the gap distance, and where each rail is slide into the upright gap of each upright.

7. The fence gate kit of claim 6, where each of the plurality of rails is spaced from a next rail by a rail gap.

8. The fence gate kit of claim 7, where glue is used to secure the plurality of rails to the uprights.

9. The fence gate kit of claim 7, where each rail is secured by a screw.

10. The fence gate kit of claim 6, where each upright can have more than one inner wall, created by one or more inner box beams.

11. The fence gate kit of claim 6, additionally comprising a webbing, where the webbing prevents an end of a frame member from extending beyond an outer wall of the upright.

12. The fence gate kit of claim 11, where one or more frames can be secured within one or more uprights without the use of external welding.

13. The fence gate kit of claim 12, where one or more rails can be secured withing the one or more frames without damage to the finish of the uprights, frames, or rails.

14. The fence gate kit of claim 12, where the frames are secured within the uprights by screws.

15. The fence gate kit of claim 12, where the frames are secured within the uprights by internal welding.

16. The fence gate kit of claim 12, where the frames are secured within the uprights by glue.

17. The fence gate kit of claim 12, where the frames are secured within the uprights by at least one of glue, internal welding and screws.

18. The fence gate kit of claim 12, where all connections between uprights and frames, and frames and rails, are internal.

19. The fence gate kit of claim 18, where all connections between uprights and frames, and frames and rails, are accomplished without damage to the finish coating on any of the uprights, frames, and rails.

20. The fence gate kit of claim 12, with all connections between uprights and frames, and frames and rails are accomplished without the use of supportive bracing or external welds.

21. The fence gate kit of claim 12, where the number of inner box beams in an upright is two, and the inner box beams form a channel into which a frame member fits, and the channel is blocked at one end with a webbing, and the frame member can rotate only in a vertical direction, as the box beams and the resulting channel prevent any horizontal movement of the frame member.

22. The fence gate kit of claim 21, where the lack of any horizontal movement results in a stronger and more rigid gate.

23. The fence gate kit of claim 12, where the lack of external welding creates a resulting gate where all parts of the resulting gate will weather at the same rate.

24. A fence gate kit, comprising a gate upright, a rail, and an attachment, where the gate upright has a right box beam, a left box beam, and a center box beam, where the gate upright also comprises a hole, where the rail has a rail shape, and the hole has a hole shape, and the rail shape fits into the hole shape, where once the rail is inserted into the hole, the rail rotates at a rail rotate angle, where the rail rotate angle is adjusted to a desired angle, at which point it is secured by the attachment.

25. The fence gate kit of claim 24, where the hole is rectangular in shape.

26. The fence gate kit of claim 24, where the hole is square in shape.

27. The fence gate kit of claim 24, where the attachment is glue.

28. The fence gate kit of claim 24, where the attachment is selected from group consisting of glue, screws, and welding.