Garden Gate
Built by Nate Clark, Based on a Design by Charles Prowell, 2020
I started by resawing and hand planing the cedar for the decorative window muntins.
The vertical muntins are attached to the horizontal muntin with a lap joint. I scribed my cut lines with a utility knife.
I scribed a line marking the depth of cut on the muntins with an old fashioned marking gauge.
I used my fancy back saw to make the cuts.
A chisel and mallet made quick work of the waste.
A few smacks with a rubber faced mallet snaps the pieces in place. I used titebond 3 for all of the gluing operations in this project.
The muntins are attached to the rails with dowels.
Gluing up the dowel joints.
Clamping the rails to the muntin assembly. Little blocks of scrap act as cauls to prevent the powerful clamps from crushing the cedar.
I skipped the fasteners and only used joinery to assemble this door. Fasteners would not have been sufficient to hold this gate together over the long haul. Here I'm drilling away most of the waste for the mortises in the upper two rails.
I cleaned up the mortises with a chisel and a shop vac. Both the rails and the stiles will be mortised which will allow me to use a loose tenon built from oak.
A draw-bore loose tenon. I made the tenons from white oak. I've drilled a hole through the walls of the mortise. These holes in the tenon are slightly offset so when I drive a pin through the joint it will be drawn tighter.
I made some spear tipped square pegs from white oak. It takes a framing hammer to drive them through the joint.
I cut the pins flush to the rails. Then I drilled a couple of relief holes in the tenon and cut a kerf into the tenon freehand with the table saw. I also made a bunch of white oak wedges. The wedges get glued and pounded into the kerfs in the tenon after final assembly. This locks the tenon in place in the stiles.
Mortising the stiles with a router and home made template. These are through mortises so I'll remove waste from both sides with the router creating two shallow tenons.
Connecting the two mortises with a spade bit.
A bit of chiseling cleans up the waste which completes the mortise.
I used my trim router to cut grooves into the lower section of the stiles and a couple of the rails to accept the ship lapped cedar panel. A secondary groove at the bottom of the lower rail's groove leaves a place for rain water to collect. A series of small holes drilled all the way through the rail will allow the water to drain out.
Glue up. I started by gluing the rail/mullion assembly and the bottom rail to one of the stiles. Clamps hold the stiles to the rails as I pound the wedges into the tenons. A healthy amount of wood glue locks the parts together permanently.
Ship lap panel. I used the small router to rabbet some 5/4 cedar (that I planed down to 3/4"). These boards will make up the panel in the gate. I softened the outside corners of each board with a few licks from the block plane. Sealing the endgrain and the insides of the grooves on the rails and stiles will hold off decay for a few more years, I used an off the shelf deck stain from the orange store.
Final assembly. I fit the ship lapped panel boards into place. There is about 5/8" of room for the boards to expand. Should the humidity swell the panel this will prevent the panel from breaking apart the door as it expands.
More glue, more wedges. I used white oak for the tenons, wedges and pins because it resists decay and is much stronger than cedar.
Trimming the tenons flush to the stiles.
Cleaning up the edge of the stiles and the tenon endgrain with a huge block plane.
The rails and stiles were slightly different thicknesses so I hand planed them flush.
Sanding with 120 grit smooths things out.
A faux craftsman era fence gate. It's 6' tall and 42" wide. The 5 1/4 wide stiles give me some wiggle room to cut the gate to fit whatever reality I encounter when I set the gate posts.