Olly's Gate

[SketchUp Guru]

In his thread on a new gate for his mum he asked about placing the diagonal braces accurate so their ends are 50mm from the ends of the horizontal braces. Here's a method to construct that brace.

Although I used SketchUp for the illustrations, this could be done with paper and pencil as well. This one will get you pretty close although it isn't dead on. Of course when it comes time to build it out of wood, you just make the brace slightly longer, lay it in place and mark it off the gate for cutting.

Start with the two horizontal members. Measure in 50mm from the ends as shown. I used the Tape Measure to place a couple of guide points. Then I drew a line between them.

Next I used the yellow Protractor tool to place a guideline at 90° to the diagonal line. It crosses at the midpoint of the line. With the Line tool, I drew along that guideline 44.5mm, half the width of the bracing board. Then I continued up to the end of the first diagonal line.

I continued the last line drawn down to the lower rail making sure it was magenta as I drew. Holding the Shift key will lock it. Then across to the guidepoint at the bottom.

I placed a guideline to show where the other long side of the brace will be but it isn't required that you use it. Start the line tool at the lower guidepoint and then hover over the other edge of the board for a moment. When you bring the tool back so the line turns mageneta, hold Shift to lock the direction and continue drawing up to the upper horizontal member. Then draw a line to complete the face.

Erase the guides, Push/Pull to thickness, make the diagonal a component and you're finished.

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Sometimes I can't see the forest for the trees.

An "old dead guy" with a triangle spoke to me and showed me a better, more accurate way.

Method to follow shortly.

 

[SketchUp Guru]

Here we go. This is more of a geometry lesson than anything. And who needs that?

So, the set up:

Guidepoints in from corners as before. Diagonal line between points.

Short line drawn at midpoint of diagonal. I drew it horizontally because it was easy to do that. The short line's length is half the width of the brace. (44.5mm)

With the Tape Measure tool, measure the distance from the midpoint of the diagonal to the guidepoint. I set Precision as high as it would go for this before measuring.

You now have one side and the hypotenuse of a right triangle. Using the old dead guy's law, c^2-a^2=b^2, we calculate the length of b and then draw that in vertically. (At a right angle to the short line.)

Rotate the line b about the midpoint of the diagonal so that the upper end intersects the guidepoint.

Finish drawing the brace and delete the unneded stuff.

 

[OPJ]

That's brilliant, Dave. Exactly what I wanted to know - thank you!