Overlapping Gate

Space efficiency without the trade-off

The stacking mechanism covers wide openings from a short retraction zone — typically one-third of the total gate width, sometimes less depending on leaf count and configuration.

All-aluminum frame, no rust, no repainting

Reinforced aluminum profiles throughout. No secondary rust treatment required; the surface finish stays put without the periodic remediation work that steel gates eventually need.

Leaves that move as one unit

The linkage pulley system ties each leaf’s movement to a fixed ratio relative to the next. When the motor drives the first leaf, the rest follow at the right speed — not approximately, but locked in mechanically.

Quiet running

Nylon-coated rollers carry the leaf weight along the track. The noise profile is low; most of the sound on opening and closing comes from the motor, not the gate hardware.

Panel and color options

RAL powder coat across the full palette. Panel infill in horizontal slats, solid board, or laser-cut decorative patterns — specified per project.

Motor compatibility

Works with standard rack-and-pinion sliding gate motors at 24V DC or 220V AC. Soft start and stop are standard on compatible motor units.

Why Aluminum and Not Steel on a Multi-Leaf Gate

Steel overlapping gates exist. They’re also the product that tends to generate the most field complaints — motor burnouts, track wear, and rust creeping in through the leaf gaps where the coating gets abraded by the sliding contact. The weight is the root of most of it: three steel leaves stacking behind one another puts serious load on the drive system every single cycle.

The aluminum version of the same gate is a different operating environment. The leaves are lighter, so the motor is working against less inertia on every open and close. Less inertia means less friction on the track hardware, which extends the service interval on the rollers and the drive mechanism. When you’re running a gate through 10 or 15 cycles a day on a commercial site, that difference accumulates into actual cost over a few years.

The rust situation is simpler: aluminum doesn’t rust. The anodic oxide layer that forms on aluminum is not a coating you apply — it’s a reaction product of the metal itself, and it re-forms if the surface gets scratched. The powder coat on top handles the color and adds another layer of UV and weather resistance. JHR has coastal installations that have been in service for over a decade and haven’t needed surface remediation. That’s just the material doing what it does.

Synchronization: What Makes the Mechanism Work and What Makes It Fail

The telescopic mechanism looks straightforward until it isn’t. Each leaf needs to travel at a speed proportional to its position in the stack — the outermost leaf moves fastest, the inner leaves progressively slower. If that ratio drifts — worn pulleys, a stretched linkage cable, a misaligned roller — the leaves start to fight each other. You get jerking, uneven gaps between panels, and accelerated wear on whichever hardware is taking the extra load.

JHR uses a high-tension mechanical linkage to hold each leaf in a fixed speed relationship with the next. The leaves don’t follow each other by feel or by friction; the linkage ties them together positively. When the assembly is correctly set up and the hardware is in good condition, all leaves decelerate into the open or closed position together, without one panel arriving before the others have cleared their travel.

The practical test is watching the gate run. On a well-set telescopic gate, the leading edge of the outermost leaf and the trailing edge of the innermost leaf reach their end positions at the same moment. On a gate with a synchronization problem, they don’t. That’s the spec JHR builds to.

Overlapping Gate 1

Product Specifications

Applications and Customization

The leaf count and individual panel widths are calculated against your actual wall dimensions — not a standard range you choose from. A 6-meter opening on a site with 2.2 meters of side clearance gets a different configuration than the same opening with 3 meters available. The engineering team works from the site measurements, specifies the telescopic ratio, and produces a CAD layout before the order is confirmed.

Panel infill is selected by the project: horizontal slats read well on modern residential and commercial facades; solid privacy board is the practical choice for road-facing gates where visibility through the infill is a concern; decorative laser-cut inserts work on properties where the entrance is a visual focal point and the gate infill needs to carry some of the aesthetic load.

Motor configuration scales with the application. Single-motor setups handle standard residential use. On wider commercial spans — above 8 meters or at high cycle frequency — dual-motor arrangements split the drive load and maintain the synchronization tolerance the mechanism requires.

If the side clearance on your site is the thing that’s been limiting your gate options, send the wall dimensions to the JHR engineering team. They’ll calculate the telescopic configuration that works for that specific opening, and provide a full quote covering gate, motor, and installation hardware.