Drive Gates - Motice and Tenon Joints

[harryharris]

Hi, Im back asking for more advice, hopefully as usual someone will be kind enough to point me in the right direction. I have been looking at making a set of driveway gates, the gap is approx 8' wide, I am looking to make 2 x 4' wide by 5' high gates, either in redwood or if I can find a suitable supplier in hardwood (not sure which type yet). As I am really just starting out into wood work projects I have a limited range of tools/machinery and I am justifying the purchase of items against potential savings on buying in a finished product. Its not an exact science, Im not a business and early on I may spend more than I would have done buying a finished product but I have the new tool/machine for the next project. Anyway, my questions specific to the gate project........

Frame / Finished size and surface finish

I do not have a planer/thicknesser so planned to buy in the wood for the frame planed all round to correct size, may be more expensive? however by chance I visited a local gate manufactuer on Friday and was taken into the workshop to look at some samples. I had assumed that they would have planed the frame members to size and then machined they joints but in fact they seemed to have hand cut the joints into rough sawn timber which is then finished to 3" square frame members. I personally would have thought this could introduce inaccuracy in the joints ie, by machining more off one side than the other which would offset the joint??? Is there a reason they have done it this way?

Im also now considering whether to use this as an opportunity to purchaser a planer thicknesser as opposed to a router (or both) and do I need a planer thicknesser or just a planer? I presume a thicknesser cuts the wood roughly to size and a planer finishes to size/provides smooth finish??? So would a table saw and planer achieve the same - Im probably missing something, forgive my ignorance.

Mortice / Tenon Joint

I had looked at various options - jigs/routers/hand cut/table saw cut/morticer etc. My idea was to make a home made jig and route ot the mortice and tenon on the pre finished sections. However bearing in mind my question above Im considering cutting the joint by hand with a saw and the mortice in my pillar drill

Hardwood Supplier

I asked a similar question previously and was pointed to a list of suppliers. However I was struggling to find someone who supplied Iroko in 3" - 4" PAR spars. Also need T+G sections for the boarding, would you recommend machining these myself with a router table if I invest in the PT to cut the blanks?

My budget is roughly £500 for bought in hardwood gates so Im looking at the best result in terms of ease of producing good quality gates/addition of new equiment to workshop

Thanks again for any advice


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[Chems]

I recently discovered my local hardwood supplier and they are quite happy to run boards off for you, its not overly expensive really either.

Tongue and Groove is probably going to be expensive to buy, a router and the right attachment might be cheaper?

 

[OPJ]

Hi Harry,

A planer (also known as a jointer or surfacer) is used to prepare an accurate face and edge side at 90º to each other before running the timber through a thicknesser machine. The planer will straighten and flatten any timber. If you were to feed the timber in to a thicknesser without preparing these references faces first, you may well end up with a length of timber of equal width and thickness, but it would not be straight, square or true and you would struggle to work with it.

The main problem with buying PAR timber is that it can move (expand and contract) once you've started working with it; depending on how well the yard or merchant has stored the timber previously.

Router's are incredibley versitile tools. With the right jigs, there isn't much you cannot do with a router on its own! For cutting mortices etc., you'll need a 1/2" collet model. You should ideally look to buy the best you can afford as well (£200 is a good estimate).

If you're only getting started in the world of woodwork, you're probably better off going for decent joinery-grade softwood. Do you know if there's anywhere near you that'll pressure-treat/tanalise the wood for you? This is a process that can help to prolong the life of any exposed exterior softwood. You could then send the pre-machined components off to be treated before final assembly.

Iroko is an ideal timber for external joinery. But, it isn't expensive, isn't easy to work with if you're a beginner and, above all else, the dust is lethal!

Hope this has given you some things to consider.

 

[harryharris]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. Yes I can get it treated locally. Would you go for redwood or is there a better choice? I looked on a website for Iroko and it was expensive for PAR, in fact the bought in gates started to look cheap lol, maybe the company I was looking at was expensive - SL Hardwoods?

 

[OPJ]

I only ever hear good things about SL Hardwoods, so I'd stick with that.

Redwood should be fine also. It's what bench joiners commonly use in most situations.