Driveway gates - part 4 - The Rails

Each of the pairs of gates are different widths. The end detail of each tenon is the same and the same process used for each.

The rails are made from 4/4 stock and was milled to final dimension after a period of acclimation to the shop. The width of each rail is 145mm (5-3/4"). Each tenon is 12mm (1/2") thick and 90mm (3-1/2") wide. Each tenon is also made intentionally 5mm longer than required. This is so the length can be cut flush with the stile after glue up.
The tenons are not central but are 11mm from one face. The other side of the tenon is 2mm from the other face.

The shoulders of each of tenons were cut on the table saw after marking with a marking knife. This also severs the grain to minimise tear when sawing.

Waste stock from each tenon was cut off by hand with a rip saw. If the tenons had been shorter then a mortise jig could have been used on the table saw.

The tenon faces were then cut to final depth using a router mounted in a custom tenon router sled. I showed this design in an earlier post tmcwoodworks.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/garden-gate-project-part-3-top-and.html

Router Sled

The business end of the router sled

Each tenon face was then smoothed with a rabbeting block plane. This ensured that a nice sliding fit in each mortise was made.

Finishing off with a rabbeting block plane

The upper rail of each door has a triangular shaped board glued to the rail. This serves two purposes:

• Supports the cover rail that protects the end grain of each T&G upright board
• Provides an fixing point for a shoot bolt. The door can be locked from the outside by simply reaching over the top of the door. There will be padlocks lower down the inside face of each door that enable secure locking from the inside at night.

The mid rail is at a suitable position for future anchoring of automatic gate openers.