There has been and will all ways be a great need for beautiful Wooden Gates today. Over the many years that wood has been used as a material for gate manufacturing there have been processes and methods collected by modern gate manufacturers to produce the wooden gates that we see on our properties today. Softwood is a popular type of timber to use on price sensitive gateways. Using softwood has been improved by pressure impregnating methods to prolong the life span of the material, that otherwise would falter sooner than expected. The down side to pressure impregnation is it’s not economical for one off purpose sets to be made and then treated. Hardwood gates have a far greater quality of enduring the elements than softwood. In many species there is no apartment knot defect which looks better to the whole quality appearance and most hardwoods has a higher ability to with stand decay against softwood which is highly susceptible. The raw material price difference between softwood and hardwood is quite high. Leaving softwood the most popular for economic and price appealing production(Buy once and buy right I say).
The boundaries of wooden gate manufacturing are being pushed by demand of quality and design to suit the modern day contemporary look. Other materials are being mixed in to todays gates,example glass and stainless are cropping up more often. The finish used to preserve and look after the wood work has come on in leaps and bounds from the days of oil based paint or good old creosote. High build environmental friendly water based stains are present on 21st century gate.
The greatest improvement that has yet to be fully embraced by a lot of the wooden gate manufacturers is the use of Accoya and Tricoya(Mediate). It definitely has a place in todays gate making workshops, just down to its stable ability to withstand over expansion in board form making it ideal for outside use and damp environment, especially with the ability in the form of a barrier (indigestable) to resit insect attack. Accoya is quite pricey to say the least, but I hope to see more wooden gates made from this product in the future.
