Garden Gate

[Dewald Swanepoel]

7 minutes ago, Chet K. said:

These has been enjoyable to watch Dewald.  I just hope your garden is worthy of this gate. 

Haha! The question is whether I am worthy of my garden

[TerryMcK]

I think you already know wood is dynamic and expands/contracts cross grain. It doesn't move much in length. The mullions have been placed into dados in the rails at right angles. There isn't anywhere for the mullions to expand into as they are meeting what is now the end grain of each dado "pocket" (the cross rail and dado pockets will maintain its length in varying humidity). Any potential stress point is at the bottom of the square corner of the dado. As the grain is running in the direction of a stress point as soon as the mullion expands something has got to give - it could start a crack along the grain. Either the mullion will push outwards or the small section of the cross rail at the dado will crack along the grain and fall off.

If the mid rail had been the same section as the top rail and mortises cut in it instead of lapjoints there would be no issue with bits falling off as there is meat surrounding the entire joint. It might locally crack but wouldn't come apart.

The lower rail is the right scale but maybe if the mullions hadn't been restrained from moving (no lap joints in other words) I wouldn't have picked up on it.

Google crossgrain wood expansion - you may find some stuff. Marc has an article here that may give a few pointers.

http://www.thewoodwhisperer.com/articles/do-they-know-about-shrinkage/

The thing about this is not to worry or lose any sleep as any future issues can be fixed. I hope I have an unnecessary concern here and it might not happen

[Dewald Swanepoel]

The final step for the actual construction stage of the gate is to insert the diagonal brace in the back (light blue board). I started by clamping the board in place on the back of the gate so I could mark the length of the board and also the locations of all the lap joints with the mullions. I chose a top-right to bottom-left diagonal for the brace as I wanted it to resist compression forces, not expansion forces. The hinges will be on the left of the gate as seen from behind like this.

I realised once again that I was overly hasty glueing the tongued boards in place. This step would've been much easier had I done it first. Marking the locations of the lap joints was easy enough but marking the ends of the brace was a little tricky as I couldn't get any hand, pencil or marking knife behind the board. I ended up hot gluing scrap pieces of wood under the brace and jammed right into the corners with the gate frame. This way I could remove the clamps and see exactly where the cuts had to be made.

I cut the board roughly on the bandsaw

And then sanded down exactly to the line to get a nice clean and sharp corner that fits precisely into the frame of the gate. After this I could pop off the glued on blocks.

The lap joint I cut with the plunge router in pretty much the same way I've illustrated before with the mullions and mid rail so I didn't get more pictures of that process. Before fixing the diagonal brace in place I first sealed the tongued boards with epoxy seeing as I wouldn't be able to do this once the brace is in place. I also sealed the back of the diagonal brace for the same reason. An expired credit card works nicely for applying a uniform thin coat.

And then the diagonal brace went in. I'm very pleased with the snug fit in the corners and with the lap joints. I imagine the cross-grain expansion might cause problems here as well but most of this had been completed by the time Terry issued his warning. I'm not really sure how such a diagonal brace would be designed differently though to avoid this?

Notice also that the diagonal brace is 5mm thinner that the exposed backs of the mullions. This is to allow water to run through and not settle in the corners between the mullions and the brace. I'm not sure if I should worry about the bottom rail and water settling on top of it. In retrospect, I should've given it a slight bevel, at least the sections between the mullions.

And that's the gate.

And the back

The construction may be done but there's a still a fair bit of work left though, not least of which is the sanding and finishing. I also have to still build the two posts between which the gate will be mounted. I've actually already started on that and the next post will show those.
 

[Tpt life]

It looks nice Dewald!!

[wtnhighlander]

Dewald, your gate looks great!

[Dewald Swanepoel]

Thanks guys. I have to stress that this is a first for me. I took woodworking as an extra subject in secondary school, back in the years when that was still an option, but that's been so many years ago that I feel like I'm starting from scratch.

I think it was @Janello who mentioned my "interesting" joinery in an earlier comment. I'm sure some of it must be interesting as I basically sucked it from my thumb but I'm not convinced that they're always the best. Please feel free to point out where my joinery are unconventional or less than ideal and what the more conventional ways would be to do things.

I set out on this project expecting, and hoping, to learn a few things and so far I've certainly learned some useful lessons already. But I'm all ears if more experienced woodworkers has critique or advice for me.

 

[Janello]

It looks awesome, Dewald. Much to be proud of there !  

I meant interesting joinery in a good way!  Not that I know much about building gates but I see nothing that looks unconventional. 

 

[Chestnut]

This has been awesome to follow along with. The gate looks great and i really like the look of that wood. It's cool being able to see what people can make in different countries with local woods. I hope to see more from ya in the future.

As for critique this is outside of my zone of knowledge.

[Chet]

Great job Dewald!  I have enjoyed watching this project come together. 

[Dewald Swanepoel]

OK, let's wrap this up. Before the gate could be hung there were a few small finishing steps. Of course I had to make mounting posts on which the gate would hang. These consisted of simple boards joined together in an L-shape. The front board gets a rounded top end.

This was cut roughly with the bandsaw and then sanded down to the line on the disk sander.

Ideally I would've liked to join these with a tongue-and-groove joint or something similar but the sizes of the stock I had available meant that I couldn't afford to cut a tongue in the side boards. I would lose too much wood and the posts wouldn't be thick enough for the gate to fit against it. My best option so was to cut a groove in both boards and join them with a floating tongue (if that's what you'd call it). I cut the grooves on the table saw but in retrospect I think I might have been able to cut neater grooves on the router table.

Glue, clamp, wait

Then cut the bottom end to length, showing a cross cut of this floating tongue joint. Hmmm, not the tightest fit, but I think it'll hold up.

I thought I'd quickly illustrate another technique which I've never used before but I'm sure all of you are well familiar with. The gate got a nasty bump against a screw head on one of the stiles, leaving an unsightly imprint.

So, I thought I'd try the wet cloth and iron treatment

And it is gone. Completely! I had read of this technique before and I understand the principle but I didn't actually expect that it would work so perfectly. I'm really impressed.

With everything assembled, the next big task was to sand that puppy through the grits. No pictures to illustrate this boring stage but I went from 100 up to 440.

And for the finish I opted for Danish Oil, 4 coats of it.

This graphic didn't end up as cool as I saw it in my mind's eye, due mostly to different lighting conditions when the different images were taken and the limitations of GIF image quality, but I'll include it anyway.

And that's the gate. All that remains is to hang it. This was completed yesterday and I'll put up the last pictures in another post.

[wtnhighlander]

Looks great, Dewald! I never heard of Outdoor Danish Oil. Good to know there is such a product.

[Dewald Swanepoel]

12 minutes ago, wtnhighlander said:

Looks great, Dewald! I never heard of Outdoor Danish Oil. Good to know there is such a product.

If I'm being perfectly honest, I think I would've preferred the ordinary Danish Oil. I'm not even sure in what aspects the two differ really but this outdoor product is also quick drying and I don't think that was too great an idea. I'd pour a little bit on the wood but then, while I'm rubbing it in on one side, it runs off the other side and by the time I get there to rub it in, it's already made run marks and started drying, making it very hard to rub out.

[Dewald Swanepoel]

Final post. The only remaining step was to hang the gate. I hit two very frustrating snags at this point though.

First off, I had searched long and hard to find Hook and Band hinges. For some reason, I just couldn't find the stuff at any of the local hardware shops. The problem is that our hardware shops are getting bigger and slurping up the smaller shops (the Walmart effect). But along with them getting bigger, they seem to cater for fewer people - really just the everyday handyman who'd never have any need for a specialised hinge like this.

I finally found an online store that carried them and placed an order. Much relieved. But then, as I got ready to mount the thing on Saturday, I realised my oversight. This hinge would not hang the gate flush with the post. I'd have to sink it into the side of the post by a significant amount and I don't think that would have been practical or looked nice. Aaarrggh!!!!

So having spent months sourcing these hinges, I now had a day to find an alternative. Frustratingly, I had to settle for T-hinges. I think they'll be fine but it's not what I wanted and considering the time and effort (and money) I've put into the gate, I wanted it to be perfect.

And then, just as I thought everything was done and I screwed in the gate latch, this mass hardware shop (their name is Builder's Warehouse in case you ever do woodworking in South Africa and you need to know whom to steer clear of) bit me one more time. Despite having drilled pilot holes for the 4mm screws, I managed to turn the head clean off with a hand screwdriver. So after months of meticulous work on this gate to get it as neat and proper as I could, I now had a cheap Chinese screw stuck in the one spot where I absolutely have to put a screw in. I could throttle the CEO of Builder's Warehouse.

My only option was to drill small holes around the screw and excavate it.

Then round out the hole with a 10mm drill bit and plug it with a dowel which I made from the same wood as the gate.

The dowel was trimmed flush and the latch could be screwed in - this time with a proper screw that was not bought from a store who doesn't buy from the cheapest suppliers with no regard for quality.

And here is the gate, from behind, showing the latch and the T-hinges (and also the reason for putting up the gate peeping through the mullions).

So here's the before:

And after:

And a close up

And a quick flash back to the original plan:

[TerryMcK]

Shame the hook and band hinges didn't fit - save them for another gate - but the Tee hinges will be fine. Glad you fixed the crappy screw issue.

[ChrisG-Canada]

Looks great!

[Dewald Swanepoel]

3 hours ago, TerryMcK said:

Shame the hook and band hinges didn't fit - save them for another gate - but the Tee hinges will be fine. Glad you fixed the crappy screw issue.

Yeah, I already have another passage in the garden behind the swimming pool house which I'm thinking of blocking off with a gate. The hook and band hinges will come in handy for that. And this time I'll take their design into consideration while building the gate.