Hardwood Gate

we build a new hardwood entrance gate.

the base is built in Okan hardwood, the sidings are Tali hardwood

materials used:

- Okan hardwood 90mmx90mm

- Okan hardwood 75mmx60mm

- Tali hardwood 145mmx25mm

equipment used:

- mitter saw

- impact driver

- glue clamps

- inox screws (5x70, 5x90, 4x50)

- wood bolts (6x70)

- rustremover spraycan

- black paint spraycan

- outdoor woodglue D4

- belt sander and rotary sander

step 1:

go to the site and measure the old gate or the opening where you plan on installing the gate

Then I started sketching out the gate, using the measurements I made on site and keeping the width and depth of my wood in mind. the sketch-up is then the guide for the whole build. I originally planned to make a cross at the back - as you can see in the drawings - but as I was building the gate I opted to make a square subframe instead of the cross.

I started out by building the base frames, connecting the corners in half-lap technique. I used woodglue and five additional inox screws on each corner. The mitter saw was used to make the cut-outs

I then build both subframes using the same half-lap technique as I did with the base frames. I screwed the subframes onto the base frames using both inox screws as well as woodglue.

I made 12mm holes in the subframes where the screws are to make it possible to fill those holes with wooden dowels to protect the screws. I did this with almost all the screws.

It was then possible to do a testfitting for the sidings, the Tali boards where cut to size and all the holes for the inox screws were then pre-drilled and countersunk.

It was the first look at how the gate was going to look.

I still had to cut out a space for the pickguard (or doorguard) and do a whole lot of sanding before going of to installing.

as this is a outdoor project and the wood used is outdoor hardwood only sanding and rounding over had to be done, no oils, no varnish,...was used on the wood.

once on site, we had to start by removing the old gate. The hinges were still in perfect working order so we only had to spray some de-derusting spray on them, clean them up and repaint them in black. The old gate was in a very bad state and had been fixed a couple of times as you can see.

once the old gate was removed and the hinges got some new life into them, we did a test fit of the new gate by clamping the frames onto the hinges, once the whole gate was levelled out on both sides we mounted the frames onto the hinges using some threaded wood bolts

securing all the Tali sidings was a straight foreward job as everything had already been testfitted in the workshop. the added weight of the sidings did not affect the hinges in any way, we didn't need to make any corrections and it was a smooth install.

We drilled out the space needed for the lock using a impact driver and speeddrills, finishing of with a chisel.

a doorstop to keep the gate for slamming shut when in open position was also needed.

once the locks and doorstops were all in place we could look back at a succesfull new gate that will last for ages.

colourwise the gate will start aging over time and getting some grey patina.

thoughts:

I was pleasently surpised with the Okan hardwood, as this was the first time I used this wood (I would normally go with afzelia or afromosia to build these kind of structures) the Tali is a well known wood which I like using for outdoor constructions.

Inox hardware is very fragile when using hardwood, always pre-drill every hole or these kind of screws will break off. We re-used the hinges because the cost had to be kept low, but it would make a lot more sense to use new hinges you which you can resize in height, depth and width.

The gate has now been in use for 4 months and no adjustments had to be made jet, still opens and closes as good as the first day.