Building a 16' gate to slide into an 8' fence

Due to trees and things, I need to build a telescoping 16' gate to slide into 8' worth of fence.


I can't find the relevant Farm Show magazine to tell me how to do this.


Any sage wisdom?

Do you mean sliding? Or a true multi staged telescoping gate? Sliding gates are pretty easy. You looking for powered or manual. Cost for a powered job starts at 1000-1500 for the cheap equipment to operate the gate.

Sliding, so two 8 foot panels slide out of one 8 foot fence part. I need to build some sort of telescoping slider thing, like a giant toolbox drawer slide.

Sounds cool, how secure does it need to be? Just cars, or are you trying to keep people, smallish animals in/out ?

"Angry pit bull" secure.

Theres a few options already out there. Have you seen anything that's close to what you want?

YouTube

Doesn't need to be automated, but that'd be nice.

I guess they're also called "tandem gates".

Tandem Gates for Small Driveways - AGF Custom Metal Concepts
Slide and Tandem Gates - AGF Custom Metal Concepts

I'd prefer somebody to sell me the hardware, or I'm trying to wrap my head around the best way to fabricate it. I don't want to spend tens of thousands of dollars to have "professional fence people" touch it.

Aluminum would be best do to weight. And a old chain drive garage door opener. Done. Just need to make a weather cover for the opener. Seriously though, you could reverse engineer just off of some websites and get pretty close. Hardest part is your on a island. Getting all the guide wheels and such would be the hardest parts to source.

dual gates opening to the inside would make life a lot easier

Those are pretty sweet.

Some things I really didn't like:
1) The tracks on the ground that will likely get smashed or dirt buildup over time. Maybe even corrode.
2) The construction of the gates look like they should be flipped. Right now someone could push on the rood and there's only a few fasteners holding it on. If that wood was on the outside, they's have to pull (hard to do, nowhere to grab) or push hard enough to brake the wood or framing.

I'd also look at maybe doing a rack and pinion style so you can lock your 2-1 ratio on the furthest traveling door and only put power/chain to the first door.

I'd also prefer it's all floating and then have a cradle at the other end to support it and sturdy it up.

This is definitely one of those projects that could be done in a weekend, or spiral out of control into a six month, over engineered piece of perfection.