Courtyard Gate – #1 Design and Material Selection

In late summer I got an inquiry asking if I was interested in taking a look at repairing or making a replacement for an old wooden courtyard gate that had seen better days.  Since I had nothing planned, we set up a time to meet and do an evaluation of the existing gate shown below.  At first glance it looked like there was just a missing piece along with some rotted infill panels both of which could be repaired.  However, upon closer inspection the rot was not limited to the infill panels but had gotten into the structural elements.  There were also some cracked framing members that when all considered made the gate a candidate for replacement rather than repair.  Fortunately, the jambs attached to the courtyard wall were in good shape and could be reused.

After taking measurements I did some research sending them about 20 different images of potential styles and designs.  That list quickly got narrowed down to a handful and the decision was made to keep the same general style of the gate but add some ornamentation to the infill panels.  More discussion ensued with a decision to add the Zia sun symbol.  In pure form it is a circle with groups of rays pointing in four directions, representing the four seasons, four cardinal directions, or the four stages of life.  It’s from the Zia Pueblo people of New Mexico.  The symbol is featured on the New Mexico state flag and gets applied to all sorts of things.  Everything from clothes, to lights, jewelry and stained glass.

With the general parameters set I made a drawing or should I say several drawings exploring a bunch of different options for using the Zia.  As I say, “The good thing about a custom design is you can have anything you want and the bad thing is you can have anything you want.”  You just have to work through all the options and decide what that is.  Below are some of the options looked at.

The final design or mostly final design settled on is shown below on the left.  The X-ray drawing on the right shows an exploded view and in it the tenons and mortices can be seen.    My guess is that the drawing is about 95% done.  Now there may be some changes regarding the infill panel’s tenons and mortises.  I guess I should say constructions details will change as the build process evolves as they always do.  I also need to double check the gate height and more importantly its width before the cutting gets started.

Because we wanted the gates to be rot resistant that limited us to a few material choices.

• Pressure treated construction lumber is really wet.  For 1½” thick material to dry I would like to allow at least 9 months and that’s so short only because we live in an arid desert climate.  Additionally, when drying it can display all sorts of problems like warp, twist, cup split and kink plus it generally has flaws like knots that are really unacceptable in this application.
• White oak is a possibility but it costs quite a bit and it’s pretty heavy with a specific gravity of about .75.
• Cypress or Redwood are good choices with a specific gravity of about .4.  They are naturally rot resistant; light somewhat expensive and decent material is not available around here.  I could order some but who knows what it would look like which is why I insist on sorting through materials stacks and picking my own pieces out.
• Cedar is a good rot resistant choice with a specific gravity of about .35 but is not available locally in the thickness needed.  However, rough surface cedar fencing boards 5/8” thick by 5 ½” wide and 6’ long are locally available allowing us to sort through and pick good boards.  The down side is they are not dry and will have to set to dry out before using.  We went to the local big box store and spent a few hours sorting through their stock pulling out flat, straight grained material with minimal small defects.  We ended up with 37 pieces after sorting through about 450 boards.  Here they are stacked up to dry with spacers between each board to allow airflow around them to minimize uneven drying.

Right after stacking the boards their moisture content got checked and it registered 45.7% which is really wet with water making up much of the weight of the board.  Here are the moisture meter readings at initial testing on left, two weeks in the center and five weeks on the right with it down to less than 6% which is great.  One advantage to living in the desert where the humidity is frequently in the single digits.  The boards being relatively thin also helped speed the drying process.

After about a month the boards got moved from the wood storage area into the shop.  They then got restacked and checked for any problem children that were no longer flat, straight and true.  Surprisingly, there was only one board that had any real problems.  In the top photo the red arrows indicate how much its warped.  The inset measures it at a little over ¾”.  The bottom photo illustrates how I am trying to remove the warp.  It may work since the board is not completely dry and I am not real confident of success but nothing ventured nothing gained.

One drawback in using cedar fence boards is that they are not surfaced smooth.  The photo shows the roughness of the boards in their current state.  They aren’t as rough as regular rough sawn hardwood planks but not as smooth as needed for gluing or for a finished surface.  The first step will be to run them through a planer taking off the minimum needed to get a surface suitable for gluing.

Next Up – Surfacing & Truing One Edge

File Handles & Case – #9 Finishing & Hardware Installation

Drilling the holes for the hinge pins is next.  The top photo shows where the shims have been reinstalled between the base and the lid along with a pair of .01” thick shims between the beveled edge on the top and base.  With the shims all in the lid and base set in their exact finished location tape is used to hold the top and base in place while the holes get drilled.  Last, shown in the bottom photo is to mark the hinge pin locations and center punch that point for reference when drilling.

This is the setup for drilling.  Everything is clamped square and tight in place so the tip of the drill bit is lined up with the punched center point.  The drill has a blue tape depth marker (red arrow) so when it touches the oak wood face the hole is drilled to the proper depth.

Once the hinge pin holes are drilled the tape holding the lid and base together along with the shims get removed.  Any final light sanding is done and the two pieces are blown off with compressed air in preparation for finishing.  However, before the finish gets applied I need to plug the hinge pin holes to keep the finish out because an unfinished surface is needed for the glue to bond to.

Since the hinge pin holes are 3/16” in diameter I went to cut a piece of 3/16” dowel and found I didn’t have any.  Rather than go and try to buy a dowel that size I decided to just turn some since only two pieces about an inch each are needed.  After cutting a ¼” square piece of soft wood it’s turned to just a bit over 3/16” then 120 grit sand paper is used to put a slight taper on the end until it fits in the hole.  It’s then parted down so there is only a little holding it on then it’s snapped it off.  Making them took way less time than driving to one of the big box places to see if they even had a dowel that size.

Just like the file handles I am going to use Danish Oil Finish (DOF).  This is my typical finish for tool handles, toys or anything that could be exposed to hard use.  DOF is a lot easier to touch up if it’s damaged as compared to the lacquer finish, I use on other items.  Like the file handles three coats of DOF are applied.  This photo shows what the lid looks like when the first coat is applied.  The red arrow points to one of the plugged hinge pin holes.

When getting ready to apply the second coat of DOF I noticed that I had missed making the finger notch in the base to make opening the lid easier.  Fortunately, with this type of finish it’s not a problem.  The notch is added using a small drum in the oscillating drum sander and fine sandpaper.  The photo shows the top of the tool tilted to 30 degrees and the small drum in the process of making the notch.

Here you can easily see the light area where the notch was sanded to the desired depth.  Only other work is to lightly soften the sharp edges with 220 grit sandpaper until they feel right.  When the second and third coats of DOF get applied the color of the notch will match perfectly.

Drilling holes for the feet is next.  A brad point bit is used for drilling since the center point helps me align the bit’s point with the punched hole to accurately locate the hole just where I want it.  The bit also cuts its perimeter with a spur on its outer edge so that helps minimize tear out there.  The bottom left photo shows the brad point drill used on the left and a regular twist drill on the right.  The bottom right photo is a closer view of the drill and hole.

Gluing in the feet is done by using a toothpick to spread a little glue inside the hole then pressing the brass foot in.  To get the feet set with the same amount exposed a spacer with a small hole is set over the foot and a clamp is used to press the foot flush with the spacer.  Installing them this way takes care of any variance in the foot length or the hole depth.

The last work on the case is to install the two brass pivot pins, one of which is shown in the lower left.  Process is to take two drill bits the same size as the pins then use them to align the holes in the lid and base with the stainless-steel spacer in-between.  Cut playing cards are used as spacers to hold the lid in place during the pin insertion.

Next the assembled case is stood on edge and a drill removed.  A drift punch (red arrow) is used to make sure the wood pieces and steel spacer are still aligned.  Using a toothpick glue is carefully put in the case hole but not the lid since the lid needs to freely rotate on the pin.  The pin is then inserted and pushed in partway by hand.  The process is repeated for the other pin.  Last is to take a clamp and press in both pins until they are flush with the lid’s sides.

This is the finished case ready to be used with the just installed brass pivot pin visible at the right.  The photo also shows the continuous flow of grain on the top between the lid and the fixed part of the base.

Here the case is shown with the lid up and with the lid rotated to act as a stand holding the tools upright.

I know that this case may be a bit much for something to hold six detail files along with their handle but I enjoy using good tools and associated items.  I like to think that there is a mental component when using them that helps me do good work.  Besides the wood is from a scrap piece that was split, cupped, bowed along its length and twisted.  The brass rod and stainless-steel washers were left over from other projects and the Danish Oil Finish was on hand.  Last but not least I enjoyed designing and building the piece.  That’s my flawed reasoning and I’m sticking to it. 😊

File Handles & Case – #8 Fitting & Assembling the Lid – Brass Feet & Hinge Pins

Working on the lid’s sides are next shown highlighted in the rendering.  After getting cut to match the height of the base assembly they get cut to length on the chop saw.  A stop is set to get close but at a slightly oversize length then playing card spacers are added to trim to a perfect fit.  The cards are right at one hundredth of an inch thick so it’s easy to make tiny adjustments and in this case, I only needed one card.

Next is to size the lid, highlighted in the top drawing that goes between the just sized sides.  First, is cutting it to width and there are some considerations to be taken into account to determine the size.  To start I am adding a small stainless-steel washer just under .04” thick on each side to act as a spacer between the base and the lid.  In addition, because I want a little play between the washer and the wood another .01” or so gets added.  This totals .05” on each side or five playing cards plus the thickness of tape to hold the cards in place.  The bottom photo shows the far side in place and the near side laying down so the cards and tape are visible.

In the left photo everything is clamped up ready for the lid to be fit.  The right photo shows the lid cut and fit in place.  Note how the grain lines up between the glued-on lid at the top and the movable lid at the bottom.  The only reason they don’t match better is when the two pieces were cut apart to make the 30-degree bevel I lost some material from the saw kerf.

Gluing the lid to the sides is next.  The left photo shows the clamps set into the bench vise to hold them securely in place.  After a test fit a narrow bead of glue is sparing applied to the lid then it’s clamped in place.  If you look at the right photo the red arrow points to the glue joint where there is very little glue squeezed out meaning there is enough glue in the joint but not enough to make cleanup a problem.  It’s important to make sure the left edges of the two pieces are aligned and that the face of the lid is flush with the sides or a tiny bit lower.  If the lid and sides don’t line up perfectly it easier to bring the narrow side down flush rather than trying to bring the much wider lid piece down flush.  Once the glue cures the process is repeated for the other side.

With the second side glued on any inconsistencies between the top and sides are sanded flush.  In this case the joints were almost dead flat so very little work was required.  With that done it’s time to smooth the exposed sharp edges of the lid and base using a 1/8” radius bit in the router table.  For clarity I am going to start with the completed routing showing the finished result.  The top photo is of the lid and base with the edges rounded.  Not shown is the bottom of the base which also has its edges rounded.  The bottom photo shows how using a 12” steel ruler I set the fence flush with the guide bearing identified with the red arrow.

Here is what the routing setup looks like for the short edges.  A push block is used to help keep the piece square to the fence and vertical.  The top and bottom edges are much easier to route since they can lay flat and be stable.  The insert is a close view of the router bit.

As mentioned before there are stainless-steel washers that go between the lid and base assembly.  They act as a spacer and bearing surface to keep the oak pieces from rubbing against each other.  Before being installed they need some finishing work.  During manufacturing when stamped the edges along the back and the where the hole was punched has sharp edges.  Those edges need to be rounded so they don’t damage the oak surfaces they will be rubbing against.  The top photos below show the washer (red arrow) set up in the lathe.  Smoothing the outside using a fine file is easy.  The hole’s edge can’t be done on the lathe but must be hand held and smoothed using a small round file.  It’s fiddly time-consuming work but then there are only two washers required.

While doing metal work I decided to make the brass feet and pivot pins.  They are shown in the drawing below.  Starting with the feet a 3/16” diameter brass rod gets marked for the length needed and is put in the lathe shown in the bottom photo along with a parting tool (red arrow) to be used in the next step.

The small parting tool is used to cut a little vee groove to provide a solid starting point for the hacksaw blade to keep it from skating around when making the cut.  The bottom photo shows a closer look at the parting tool that’s about 7 ¾” long.  While a wood turning tool it’s made from tool steel and can easily cut the groove in brass.

To make the cut I find that holding the hacksaw blade with a pair of vice grip pliers and steading my hand on the lathe’s tool rest works better than having the blade in a typical hacksaw frame and trying to cut freehand.  

I don’t’ cut the piece completely free but leave just a tiny bit left.  This is because the rod’s end is held in the tailstock and I don’t want any problem with the rod when it comes free.  After stopping the lathe it’s easy to just snap the rod off.

Finishing work is to remove the stub with a file flattening the end then putting a small bevel on there as shown in the photo below.  Last is sanding the exposed piece starting with 150 grit paper and ending with 320 grit.  Once that’s done the piece is flipped the end beveled and sanded.  One down and three to go.

The same basic process is used to make the hinge pins except the part of the brass rod that gets glued into the case gets a series of notches cut in them that will help lock them in place.  Below are all of the brass parts ready to be installed.

Next Up – Finishing & Hardware Installation

File Handles & Case – #7 Fitting Riser & Stop Blocks – Cutting End Cap & Gluing On

At this point I decided to do another little redesign.  The original design had a row of riser blocks the files would set on shown in tan in the top rendering to make them easy to pick up.  In doing some testing they didn’t work as well as planned so a couple of changes were made.  The bottom photo shows the two changes made out of scrap material.  First, the original riser blocks get moved and redesigned to only have a single rounded edge rather than having both edges rounded.  The other change is the addition of a stop block at the right end of the case.

First up are the riser blocks that hold the ends of the files up.  Earlier when making the slotted ends I had made an extra just-in-case.  Since it’s no longer needed for the slotted ends, it can be repurposed to make the riser blocks.  Process starts by routing one rounded edge on the router then ripping it to thickness on the table saw.  Normally the fence is set for the size the piece needs to be with the waste to the left of the blade.  That’s not the case here because the piece is not very wide and has a rounded edge.  It’s the rounded edge that’s causing my concern.  If it’s facing up or down, I am worried my push stick could cause it to twist during the cut ruining the piece.  Solution is to set the fence so the piece to the left of the blade is what’s going to be kept.  This gives a piece with a flat top and bottom for the push stick to act on.  Cutting the height of the blank is done in normally since the finished cut piece is bigger than first one so the rounded edge is not a problem.

Next is to cut the blank into slightly wider pieces than required.  While all the spaces between the dividers “should” be the same they do vary by a tiny bit, maybe a hundredth of an inch and I don’t want any gaps when done.  Here is the setup at the chop saw used to make the cut.  The piece being cut is my test piece for making the saw setups and not the real oak blank.  Because a stop block is used to make same size pieces and the pieces are so small my plan is to cut them almost all the way through then break them apart.   This is done since there is a chance of them getting caught in the blade when cut free resulting in the piece blasting out at high-speed never to be seen again, hitting me or being damaged and useless.  One other precaution is the stop block at the right.  It’s very thin so if the piece gets cut free there is less of a chance of it getting caught in the blade.

Once cut the riser blocks are sanded to fit between the dividers using the large disk sander.

In addition to the riser blocks (left end arrow) six end stops get added (right end arrow) between the dividers to slightly shorten the storage spaces for the files.  The end blocks were not in the original plans but came about during the redesign.  They get cut and fitted similarly to the way the riser blocks were cut although to not as close tolerances since a lid cap gets glued on top of this end.  The photos below show them glued in place along with the files.

Setting up the saw for cutting the 30-degree edge on the lid cap that gets glued to the assembled base comes next.  That’s the highlighted piece in the top rendering.  The bottom left photo is a digital angle measuring gauge that shows the table saw blade tilted to the desired 30-degree angle.  The bottom right photo is of my test cut which will be used later.

After setting the angle I changed the blade from a combination to a crosscut.  That’s because the crosscut blade is specifically designed to give a smoother and more splinter free surface when cutting across the grain which is what this cut it.  I also taped the top surface to help reduce any chipping.  Last to get the smoothest finish cut I set the blank with the finished side up shown in the top photo.  A result in this setup is the piece I need to glue down again gets cut off on what normally would be the waste side.  Setting up the cut width means that I need to check from the left side of the saw rather the normal right side.  The bottom photo shows the completed cut.

While the cut is pretty good, I am going to go ahead and sand the cuts on both pieces to get the end grain really smooth.  So as to not mess up the 30-degree cut the test block is used as an angle guide.  All I have to do is to hold the piece snugly against the angled face and rub it side to side changing to finer sandpaper grits until I get to 320 grit.

The result of being careful to maintain the angle on both pieces makes them fit back together with almost no gap and the grain flow almost seamlessly between the two pieces.  The red arrows point to the joint.

In the top photo everything is ready for gluing the fixed lid cap in place at the right end of the case.  I’ve shown the area where glue will get applied highlighted in red.  Just to the left of that area is the cap itself.  In order to get a tiny bit of cap overhang along the right end I added a thin spacer indicated with the red arrow in the bottom photo.  To the right of the spacer is the stop block that will set the lid cap square with the base.  Also shown is are a set of parallel pencil marks on the dividers that mark the limit of glue application.

Here in the top photo the lid cap has been glued to the base.  The bottom photo shows how the spacer (red arrow) and stop block work together to give the cap a little overhang while keeping it square with the base.

Next Up – Fitting & Assembling the Lid – Brass Feet & Hinge Pins

File Handles & Case – #6 End Cap Shaping - Dividers, Crosspieces & Base Assembly - Fitting Bottom

Earlier on when making the divider blanks rather than bringing them down to their final thickness they were left about 1/64” oversize.  Since their final curved shape and length is done as well as the slotted end and center caps they can be brought to their final thickness.  That’s done using the thickness sander which allows me to very precisely sand off just a few thousands of an inch per pass to get that perfect fit.  Only change was to replace the 120 grit sandpaper with 220 grit paper so I would get a finish sanded surface.

Once the dividers are fitted to the slots, I could do a test fit of all the pieces completed so far as in the top drawing.  What’s missing in the other end cap (red arrow).  For whatever reason I didn’t cut that part when I did the other two and need make it now.  It’s not a big problem since the blank the others were cut from is still available.  Fortunately, the router is still set for the small radius made on the center slotted piece so that’s easy.  What will take some time is to go through the process of cutting it to exact length and resetting the router to match the two end slot cuts. 

There is no reason to go through the setup and machining processes for making the end cap since they have already been covered so here is the end result dry fitted and clamped together.

Gluing the dividers in place comes next but before that’s done the end grain of the three slotted pieces needs to be sanded because once the dividers are glued in place I won’t be able to sand them.  They are hand sanded starting with 220 grit, moving to 320 and finishing with 400 which in the photo is in the vice.  If you look at the bottom slotted piece you can see numbers 1-7 written next to the slots.  That’s so I can match up the dividers to the slots.  Even though all the slots were cut with the same router bit and the dividers were sanded at the same thickness setting in the sander there is still a very tiny bit of variation so some dividers fit better in some slots than others.

The glue-up is done in three steps to give me plenty of time to get the everything together without rushing.  The first step is to glue the center dividers into just the right end block (red arrow).  To keep the pieces from getting glued to the workbench a small piece of plastic film is laid down first.  The little spacer at the left end (red ellipse) up against the square takes the place of the outside divider which gets glued on in the third step.  The second step is to glue the dividers into the slotted center piece.  Once the glue is spread in the slot the clamping looks the same as what’s shown.

The third and last step is to glue the two outside dividers to the end caps (red arrows).  The end caps are a little different in that they don’t have a slot for these two dividers but fit in a rabbit.  A closeup view of the joint is shown in the upper right inset.

Once the glue cures, I need to flatten the bottom and the top of the assembly because no matter how careful pieces are measured, cut and assembled there will always be a little variance.  Here is what the top of the assembly looks like after all the edges have been marked with pencil lines and is ready for flattening. 

The flattening setup is a piece of 150 grit sandpaper clamped down to a known flat surface.  Here that’s the extension to my table saw.  Process is to place the assembly on the sandpaper and carefully make passes lifting after each pass and rotating end for end after every five or so passes.  Rotating helps to keep the sanding even in case I am putting uneven pressure on one of the ends.  Sanding passes are repeated until all the pencil marks are gone and all the individual pieces are in the same plane.  Here the bottom of the assembly is shown completed.

The same process is done for the top surface except once flattened the 150-grit sandpaper gets changed to 220-grit for a smoother surface since it’s exposed.  Once that’s done some hand sanding of the sharp exposed edges to soften them is done using 220-grit paper.  Also, the transitions from the curved parts of the dividers to their flat tops along with the rounded edges in the handle pocket all get touched up.  These results are shown in the top photo.  The bottom photo is a close in view of how the dividers seamlessly fit into their slots when all is completed.

Gluing the bottom on comes next.  The bottom blank has been setting aside while I have been working on other parts.  When checked it’s both are flat and true so the only thing required is to run it through the thickness sander loaded with 220 grit sandpaper giving it a near finish sanded surface.  Rather than cut the bottom to exactly fit the glued-up divider assembly the bottom gets cut about 3/16” oversize.  This gives me some flexibility when gluing it on.  If it were cut to the exact size and the glue-up didn’t go perfectly then I would have a real problem to fix.  Anyway, here is what it looks like all clamped up.

This is what things look like after the glue cures and the clamps are removed.  The bottom photo is a close view and it’s easy to see the bottom’s lip that needs to be removed.  Before doing the final trim, I will cut the overhang down to about the pencil line so there is less material to be removed with the router.

Cutting the bottom flush with the sides is done with a trim bit in the router.  Here the bit has a bearing that runs along the guide surface and the carbide cutting edge cuts the bottom flush with the divider assembly.  The red arrow points to where I stopped trimming the edge to take the photo.  Once the edges are cut a little sanding and the bottom fits perfectly.

Next Up – Fitting Riser & Stop Blocks – Cutting End Cap & Gluing On