Welding, dump bodies and steel gates in Lancaster, CA

The Lancaster shop is on Division Street, east of town, and it is the main plant. The plate racks, the saws, the weld bays and the paint area are here, and this is where Antelope Valley work starts. Gates, fencing and railing leave on a truck for your property. Dump bodies, trailers and frame work stay in the building until they are done, so truck jobs come to us.

That split is the thing worth knowing before you call. For a gate or a fence we come out, measure the opening and the run, and note which way the ground falls. Those numbers go back to the shop, and the steel gets cut and welded to them. For a body, a hoist, a tarp or a frame job, you bring the chassis to Division Street and leave it with us.

The first thing to settle on a fence out here is which rulebook covers your lot. Inside city limits, Lancaster Municipal Code 17.08.130.D holds fence height to 4 feet in the front yard setback and 6 feet in the side and rear. Cross the line into unincorporated Antelope Valley and LA County Code 22.110.070 takes over instead, at 3.5 feet in a required front yard and 6 feet at interior side and rear. A few hundred feet can change the number you are allowed, and a city mailing address does not settle it, because county ground runs right up against city streets in this valley.

If the height you want sits over the limit there is a path to it. Lancaster Municipal Code 17.08.130.E lets a director's review raise those heights by up to 25 percent. That is a submittal and a wait, so it is a decision to make at the measure rather than after the steel is cut. Either way we draw the run to the number you are actually going to get, not the one you asked for.

Wind is the condition that separates a desert fence from a city one. The open valley hands steady afternoon gusts to whatever you put in front of them. A solid steel face catches all of that load, where an open picket lets most of it through, so the choice between them is really a post and footing decision. Gate and fence posts should go at least 36 inches below ground, deeper on a solid panel or a wide leaf, and deeper still where the ground is loose. That depth is this shop's own practice and not a published minimum.

Sun finishes off whatever the wind does not. Hot dip galvanizing under ASTM A123 ties the zinc thickness to the thickness of the steel, and powder over galvanizing is a duplex system that outlasts either coating by itself. Ask for an AAMA 2604 class powder, the high performance tier, rather than the basic 2603. Rust starts at cut ends and weld seams where any coating runs thinnest, so those edges get dressed before anything is sprayed.

The truck side runs out of this same building. Super 10 bodies, custom dump bodies and end dump trailers, plus the cutting, welding and repair that keep them working. A fleet based in the Antelope Valley does not have to run a truck down the hill and back for body work, which is most of the reason this shop is set up the way it is.

From Division Street we cover Lancaster and Palmdale, Quartz Hill, Rosamond, Littlerock, Acton, Lake Los Angeles and Leona Valley, then south through Santa Clarita and into the San Fernando Valley, where the Sun Valley shop picks up. A normal week here is a mix: a driveway gate on a tract street, a yard gate for a contractor, a handrail on a porch, and a body going onto a chassis in the back.

Both shops close on weekends, but someone is on call. If a weekend is the only time you can walk the property with us, call (818) 220-8704 and we will see what we can set up.

To start a gate or a fence, call and we will set a time to come out. The opening width, the run length and the height you want get us most of the way to a price, and it helps to know whether there is power near the gate. For truck work the three answers that matter are the chassis, the cab to axle, and what the truck is hauling.