Gate Welding & Rust Repair
A steel gate rarely fails in the middle of a tube. It fails at the welds and along the bottom rail, where water sits longest. We bring the welder, the grinder, and the replacement steel to your driveway and repair the frame where it hangs.
- Welded on site, not hauled away
- Both sides of the river
- Licensed, bonded & insured in OR & WA
Symptoms of a Frame That Needs the Welder
Structural problems announce themselves early if you know where to look. Any of these is worth a call before it becomes a dropped gate leaf:
- A hairline crack in the paint along a weld line, usually at a hinge or corner joint
- A bottom rail that flexes underfoot, sounds hollow when tapped, or shows rust bleeding through pinholes
- Orange staining running down the frame below hinge barrels or hardware holes
- A gate leaf that dropped suddenly rather than sagging gradually
- Hinges pulling away from the post or frame, with cracked paint fanning out around them
- Bubbled or lifted paint along the underside of horizontal rails
The most urgent is cracking at the hinge welds: the weld carries the leaf's full weight every cycle, and a crack visible through the paint has been growing for months.
How Northwest Weather Rusts a Gate From the Inside Out
A tubular steel gate frame is a set of hollow boxes, and the failure that surprises owners most begins inside them. Rain and condensation enter through unsealed picket tops, hardware screw holes, and hairline weld cracks, and once inside, the water has nowhere to go. Eight months of drizzle keep the interior damp year-round, so the steel corrodes from the inner wall outward: a rail can lose most of its wall thickness while the paint outside still looks respectable.
The bottom rail goes first because it is the low point of the frame: every drop that enters the gate drains down to it and stays. That is why a gate that looks fine can crumple under a thumb press, and why we drill weep holes in every rail we replace. Give the water a way out and the tube lasts decades; seal it in and the tube eats itself.
The pattern shows up on both sides of the Columbia. On the acreage around Battle Ground, it is often a heavy farm gate welded up years ago with no drainage at all; in Portland's West Hills, an ornamental gate whose picket caps popped off a few winters back.
What We Weld, and How
Cracked Weld Repair
A crack cannot simply be welded over. We grind the joint back to clean, bright metal, open the crack into a V-groove so the new weld penetrates its full depth, and run a continuous bead rather than the short tacks many gates were built with. Welding over rust or paint traps contamination inside the joint, and the crack returns along the same line within a season.
Rusted Bottom Rail Replacement
When the bottom rail has rusted through, we cut out the failed section, weld in new tube of matching size and wall thickness, and drill weep holes at the low points so water drains instead of pooling. If corrosion has climbed into the vertical members, we show you exactly how far before recommending anything.
Hinge Re-Welds & Upgrades
Hinges carry the entire weight of a swing gate leaf, so their welds fail first. We re-weld pulled hinge barrels, add gusset plates to spread the load into the frame, and replace undersized hardware with heavier weld-on ball-bearing hinges. If the leaf already drags, our swing gate repair service covers the alignment work that follows.
Frame Reinforcement
Long gate leaves sag under their own weight. We add diagonal bracing and corner gussets to stiffen the frame and take strain off the hinges and operator. A straightened, braced sliding gate also rides its wheels more evenly; if yours has jumped its rollers, our off-track and roller repair page explains that side of the job.
The Welder Comes to the Gate
We weld on site. The rig runs off the truck, so your gate is repaired where it hangs instead of being hauled to a shop. MIG handles most residential and ornamental work; heavy commercial frames get stick. Light rain does not stop us (we tent the weld area), though a real downpour may push the schedule. Our routes run daily from Portland's eastside to Vancouver and the Clark County acreage north of it.
The weld is only half the job in this climate. Bare steel starts surface-rusting within days here, so we grind finished welds smooth, prime with a zinc-rich primer that protects the steel sacrificially the way galvanizing does, and topcoat to match. Open tube ends get capped; the hardware holes that let the water in get sealed.
Before we leave, we recheck the gate against its operator: travel limits and force settings tuned to a sagging gate need adjustment once it hangs straight. If the motor has been straining against a failing frame for months, our gate opener and motor repair page explains what that strain does to gear kits and control boards. We service LiftMaster, DoorKing, Nice, Viking, and the other common operators while on site.
When Welding Is Not the Right Answer
There is a point past which welding a gate is money spent twice. If corrosion is general across the frame, or the gate was built from tube too light for its span, we will say so plainly and explain what a proper replacement involves on our new gate installation page. We reach that verdict by measuring metal, not by consulting a price sheet: most gates we see are worth fixing, and a repaired frame kept dry with an annual inspection (the core of our maintenance plans) routinely outlasts the operator that drives it.
Gate Welding & Rust Repair FAQ
Can you weld my gate on site, or does it have to come off?
Nearly all structural gate repairs happen on site with the gate still hung. Welding in place produces a better result for hinge and alignment work, because we can check the gate's swing and level as we go. The rare exception is a frame so far gone that it needs a rebuild on the bench, and we will tell you that before any work starts.
The gate looks fine, but the bottom rail feels soft. How bad is that?
Soft or flexing tube means the steel has lost wall thickness from the inside, and by the time you can feel it, the corrosion is well advanced. The good news is that a bottom rail is a replaceable part. We cut out the rusted section, weld in new tube of matching size, and add drainage so the replacement does not repeat the failure.
Is a cracked hinge weld an emergency?
Treat it as one, especially on a heavy leaf. A hinge weld that lets go drops the gate without warning, and a falling gate leaf is genuinely dangerous around cars, children, and pets. Stop running the gate under power and call us; propping the leaf so its weight is off the hinges is a sensible interim step until we arrive.
Is rust repair worth it, or should I just replace the gate?
In most cases repair wins. Rust concentrates at predictable points (the bottom rail, the weld joints, the hardware holes), and those are all sections we can cut out and replace for far less than a new gate costs. Replacement becomes the honest recommendation when corrosion is general across the frame rather than local, and if that is what we find, we will show it to you before recommending anything.
What keeps the rust from coming back after the repair?
Three things: drainage, coating, and inspection. We drill weep holes so water leaves the tube instead of pooling inside it, we prime every repair with a zinc-rich primer that corrodes sacrificially in place of the steel, and we cap open tube ends. After that, an annual look at the frame (the sort of check included in our maintenance plans) catches new paint cracks before water finds its way back in.
A Cracked Weld Only Grows.
Mobile welding and rust repair on both sides of the river. Call and describe what you see, and we'll tell you how urgent it is.