Austin Metal Gates designs and builds custom driveway gates in Austin, TX, and is Travis County's trusted specialist in driveway gate fabrication, specializing in shop-drawn entry designs, welded steel frames and hand-laid picket patterns. We offer lightweight aluminum builds and forged-look wrought iron styling.
Our team provides galvanizing and powder coat finishing, delivering a one-of-a-kind entrance for homeowners and durable, low-upkeep ironwork for both residential and commercial projects. Every opening is measured on site by the same crew that installs it, and no steel is cut in our own shop until you have approved the drawings.
From picket spacing and top rail profile on the drawing to a finished leaf hung square on its posts, our team handles every detail. Serving Austin along with Rollingwood, Sunset Valley and Lost Creek, we design each entry around the lot it guards and the rules that govern it.
Why Austin Metal Gates
No stock panels cut down to fit, and no handoffs. The crew that measures your opening builds and installs the gate.
A custom gate is not picked from a catalog. It is drawn for one opening, and the drawing is the contract between what you pictured and what we build.
We start at the driveway. The crew measures the clear width between the posts or columns, the height you want, the grade under the leaves and the distance back from the street. Those numbers go straight onto the drawing, so nothing is guessed at the welding table.
In construction, a shop drawing is the detailed set a fabricator prepares so a crew can build a component exactly, with dimensions, materials and fabrication notes spelled out. Ours show the frame, every picket, the rail layout, the hinge points and the finish color. Any dimension that still has to be confirmed at the site is flagged on the sheet rather than assumed.
You review the drawing before anything is cut. Change the picket rhythm, lower the top rail, add a scroll panel: it is a pencil change now and a costly one later. When you sign, that sheet goes to the shop floor.
The metal you choose sets the weight of the gate, how it holds up outdoors, and how hard any future operator has to work.
For most estate entries we recommend steel for its rigidity and presence, and aluminum where the span is wide or the leaves will be automated. The drawing notes the metal and the tube and picket sizes, so you can compare options side by side.
The picket is the vertical bar that gives a gate its character, set at an even spacing between horizontal rails. The choices you make here are mostly about looks, but in several nearby cities they are also about code.
Pointed pickets trace back to sharpened stakes, and many buyers love the classic spear or finial profile. Some places will not allow it. Lakeway banned new spiked and open-picket fencing in 2019 and now requires a continuous flat top, because deer leaping ornamental fences were being impaled. Sunset Valley's code bars spiked elements above the top rail and pickets spaced more than two and less than nine inches apart above it.
Some associations specify the look outright. One set of recorded Barton Creek Southwest guidelines calls for brown or bronze wrought iron style pickets. We draw to whatever your association's current document says, and we check it again at quote time, because these rules change.
A solid face gives full privacy and catches wind like a sail. If you want the screen, we can draw louvers or offset slats that let wind spill through while still blocking the view.
Bare steel will rust in a Central Texas spring. The finish is what keeps a custom gate looking the way it did on the drawing.
In hot-dip galvanizing, the fabricated steel is lowered into molten zinc at roughly 450 degrees Celsius. The zinc bonds to the surface and weathers into a zinc carbonate layer that shields the steel beneath it. Because the whole piece is dipped, the inside of hollow tube is coated as well as the face you see.
Powder coating is applied as a dry powder, charged electrostatically so it clings to the metal, then cured under heat. It builds a thicker, tougher film than liquid paint without running or sagging, and it looks the same on horizontal rails as on vertical pickets.
On steel gates we galvanize first and powder coat over the zinc, so the color is the visible layer and the zinc is the backstop. Aluminum does not need the zinc and goes straight to powder coat. You pick the color from physical samples at the site visit, not from a screen.
We do not publish a set figure, because two custom gates of the same width can differ widely in what they take to build. These are the factors that move the number:
The way to a real number is the free on-site measure, after which you get a drawing and a written quote for that gate.
A gate is only as straight as the posts it hangs on. We size posts or columns and their footings for the finished weight of the leaves, not a generic default.
Where the gate sits on the lot is often decided for you. Rollingwood's code requires a driveway gate to let a car stop completely off the street and to open parallel to or away from it. Under Texas SB 711, in force since September 1, 2025, an HOA may require a driveway gate to be set back at least 10 feet from the right-of-way where the drive meets a laned road. We mark the setback on the drawing.
Even if you are not automating yet, we can build hinge points, operator mounting plates and a conduit path into the first install so an operator can be added later without cutting the finish.
The process
Four steps, and nothing is fabricated until you have signed off on the drawings and the price.
We measure the opening, the slope and where power can reach, and talk through style, automation and access.
You get scaled drawings for your approval and for any HOA or city review, with one written price.
Steel is cut and welded to the approved drawings, then galvanized, powder coated or both.
Columns and posts set, gate hung, operator set up to UL 325 and every safety device tested with you.
Questions
Width, the metal, the amount of decorative detail and whether it will be automated usually matter most. Grade, columns and approvals come next. We price from the drawing after measuring your opening, at no charge.
It depends on the design, the finish and the galvanizer's schedule, so we give you a date with the written quote rather than a general promise. Nothing is cut until your signed drawing is in the shop.
Yes. We photograph and measure the existing pickets, rails and scroll details at the site visit and draw the new gate to match their spacing, profile and color.
The owner is usually the applicant, but we supply the drawing, the finish color and the dimensions the committee asks for, and we revise the drawing if they request changes.
Steel gives a heavier, more rigid leaf with a classic presence. Aluminum weighs about a third as much, which suits very wide openings and automated gates. We can draw both so you can compare.
We work across Travis County, including Austin, Rollingwood, West Lake Hills, Sunset Valley, Shady Hollow, Barton Creek, Lost Creek, Steiner Ranch, The Hills, Lakeway and Volente.
Yes. Every custom gate we build comes with a written warranty, and you receive it with the quote so you can read it before you commit.
We measure the opening, the grade and the setback, talk through style and metal, show finish samples, and note any HOA or city rules that apply. You then receive a drawing and a written quote.
Free on-site measure across Austin and the west side. We call you back to set a time.
Calls only, we do not receive text messages.
