Garden Gate Part 17 - Completion

This is the final part of the build. The gate is done.

Fitting the hardware was easy as drilling pilot holes for the stainless steel fasteners was easy enough to do. This is oak and as you may know it eats mild steel for breakfast. You find that mild steel leaves black marks on oak over a period of time outside with the tannins in the oak reacting with the iron in the steel. Stainless steel on the other hand has no such issues.
The hinges were first to be fitted, the hinge brackets were then positioned with enough clearance on one of them to enable expansion/contraction of the wood and metal.

I use a Vix bit to centre drill each of the the hinge fastening holes.

VIx bit used to centre drill the holes
in the hinge bracket

Garden Gate Part 16 - The Hinge Post and Striker Post construction

I didn't have enough stock to make the hinge post from one piece so ended up glueing 3 pieces together to get the required rough dimensions.
Then the whole assembly was laminated together.

After the epoxy had cured the post was cut to length and the rainwater run-off angle cut on the top.
My 10" table saw is not quite big enough to be able to take a cut this deep so I broke out the cross cut tenon saw.

The clamp wall

You can never have enough clamps. These are a few I've put up on the wall in the shop.

Some parallel clamps

Some F clamps and smaller
parallel clamps

Garden Gate Part 15 - The Hinge Post design

Ordinarily I would not even consider documenting a piece of wood bolted onto a brick pillar. But as this project has become somewhat of an epic I think it needs recording.

I wanted the post to follow the same lines as the gate but have the following criteria:

• Made from same species
• Capable of mounting the hinges
• Capable of being bolted to the brick pillar
• Should follow the same lines as the gate
• Have rainwater run off
• Be finished with the same varnish.

So out came Sketchup again and I drew the post. I also drew in the hinges that I am using with corresponding mounting holes. These are 2 feet long. The top mounting bracket will be mounted upside down to prevent the gate being lifted from its hinges. There is also a self return spring to close the gate. This too had to be modelled in Sketchup. All those models are now available in the Sketchup 3D warehouse as I've uploaded them for other people to use in their projects.

The physical spring is made from stainless steel and the hinges are made from mild steel that has been heavily galvanized. The intention is to fix all the hardware with appropriate stainless steel fasteners to avoid rot and blackening of the oak.

Hinge post detail.
I have opted for 5 - 10mm  (3/8") diameter shield
bolts to secure the post to the brickwork.
All the load is transferred to the lower hinge bracket.

I was running out of white oak but had sufficient left to make both the hinge post and striker post. However I needed to do some judicious laminating to gain enough stock.
After the epoxy had cured I milled the post to dimension and glued a face board on what will be the front (as viewed from the road). The overhang of the facing board is not strictly necessary as it doesn;t do anything apart from hide the gap between gate and post. But it looks attractive especially with the top detail seen here in the Sketchup representation.

Top of hinge post detail.
The decorative brickwork at the top needs
chasing out slightly. This will be done on
site when the gate is about to be mounted.