Garage Light – #1 The Problem, Wiring & Starting Light Fixture

As with most houses there are a few things that are irritating after getting moved in and our current home is no exception.  One of them was a giant whirlpool tub in the master bath that was never used and got removed to make better use of the space see Master Bath Remodeling.  Another is how the interior garage lights are switched.  Currently the lights in the garage are switched at the door between the garage into the living area, between the garage and an unfinished store room and one between the garage and the shop.  However, there is not one between at the person door in the garage to the outside.  The drawing below shows what I mean.

If I could get access to the wiring from an attic or basement, I could add another 4-way switch by the back door so the existing garage ceiling lights could be switched from there too.  I’ve wired multiple switches together to control a light and it takes some time since controlling a light from four different locations is not the easiest thing to put together.  Here because the house is on a concrete slab and has a flat roof without an attic there is no way to get to the wiring without chopping holes in the walls or roof and that’s not going to happen.  My planned solution is to pull power from the existing switch at the back door to feed a new switch then use it to control a new wall mounted light next to the back door as in the elevation below.  That’s fairly easy however, there is still the problem of not being able to get wire to a new switch next to the door from the garage into the living area to control the new light from there.  The solution could be to install a powered smart switch at the garage/outside back door and using a battery remote at the garage/house door.  

At least that’s the plan.  The first step is open up the existing switch box and check to see if there is power available to add the new switch.  A little testing with a volt meter verified an available always on power source so that’s good.

Next was to transfer the location of the existing outside light to the inside wall so I wouldn’t end up cutting a hole in the drywall for the new light’s junction box only to find out it’s in the same place as the outside light’s junction box (left photo).  The blue tape (red arrow) is the center of the outside light’s box and the carboard cutout above it is about where the new light will go.

Laying out and cutting the hole for the new switch and light’s junction boxes is next.  That’s followed by pulling wire from the existing switch box to the new switch box and from that box up to the new light’s box.  All of that has been done in the photo below where you can see the wire hanging out of the openings.

With the holes cut and wires pulled I could install the junction boxes then make the necessary wiring connections and install a temporary light switch and light fixture.  The permanent light switches will get installed later since they need to be ordered now that I know the wiring side works as planned.  The light itself will get installed once it’s built which will be the main focus of this project from here on.

Here is a rendering of the light and an exploded plan of the parts needed except for the glass.  In the beginning I was thinking of making it from red oak but then decided to first go through my box of short leftovers and usable offcuts to see what was in there.  Turns out that red oak is the majority of the pieces available so that worked out well and is what I will use. 

Below is a dimensioned plan for each of the pieces needed, there size and quantity.  In total there are 44 wood pieces for the light frame but only eight different shapes.  Looks like there could be some jigs and fixtures used to make multiple identical parts.

More sorting through the leftovers weeding out any that had flaws or that did not color match well enough.  This narrowed the available stack down to the odds and ends in the photo below.  The pieces vary quite a bit in length, thickness and width so I will be spending some time measuring and talking to myself working to get the best cutting plan with the least amount of waste.  There is also a few whose color doesn’t quite match so they will get set aside.

With the majority of the odds and ends marked as to how they will be cut down I started on the four corner posts.  The black and white drawings below show a front and back view of the post along with its dimensions.  To simplify the cutting of the notch in the back of the posts the blank used will contain two posts plus a little extra. That’s shown in the right two color front/back drawings.  The area shown in light yellow will get cut away when the posts are sawn apart and trimmed to final size.  Milling the pair at the same time makes the cutting of the notch easier and safer.

The layout for the double post blank is shown on the end of the board.  The pencil line on the left marks the size of one of the two blanks I will cut off that board.

I cut the notch using a stack dado blade made up of three 1/8” thick cutters that will cut a 3/8” dado.  Once the correct depth of cut is set the blank gets close to being centered then run through the tablesaw resulting in the cut in the left photo.  Moving the fence to the left cuts more out of the notch then when the piece is reversed and run through the saw a second time the result is a perfectly centered notch.  The fence is moved a little more to the left and the pieces run through the saw.  This is repeated until the edge legs are the correct width ending up with what’s shown in the right photo.

Next Up – Corner Posts, Rough Blanks, Main Horizontal Pieces & Glue-up

Courtyard Gate – #13 Adding Edge Extension, Installing Latch Assembly, Strike Plate & Astragal

Adding the thin piece to one edge of the jamb stile is not as simple as cutting a piece the right size and gluing it on.  The drawing below shows where the new piece (in white) will be added to the existing stile.  The problem is since I have already rounded over all the edges if the new piece just gets glued on there is gap where they meet (red arrow) and that’s not acceptable.  To do it right the rounded edge has to be cut off before the new strip can be glued on.  Also, the existing hinge screw holes have to be transferred up from the existing edge to the new piece. 

The first step is to cut a strip that’s a bit wider than the gate.  That’s so I can trim the excess off making the new piece perfectly flush with the existing gate.  Doing it this way gives me a little leeway when gluing the strip on.  If I cut it to match the gate thickness then glued it on there is no margin for error.  The setup to transfer the hinge screw holes is to clamp a thin shim on either side of the stile which is done in the top photo.  The new strip is cut just a tiny bit narrower than the space between the clamp pads so it’s easy to slide in place.  If you are wondering what the red arrows point to, they are nails whose heads has been cut off leaving a point.  These points will transfer the screw location to the new strip.  In the bottom photo the new strip has been set into place and hammered down onto the existing stile and in the process the nails make a mark on the underside of the new strip transferring the hinge screw locations.

Taking the strip off and flipping it over it’s easy to see where the cut nails marked the center locations of the hinge screws.  They are then used to drill a pilot hole for later use.

Next is to cut the rounded edge of stile down to get a square edge.  The top photo shows the door supported by a roller stand so I can control the cut and end up with a straight smooth edge.  The pencil line in the bottom photo shows my rough mark of what gets cut off.  In reality it’s a little more, the red arrow points to the break point between the rounded edge and the flat surface.

With the rounded edge of the gate cut off the new edge strip can be glued on.  Type III glue is used along with a whole bunch of clamps shown in the left photo.  The right photo is a closer look where you can see how the strip overhangs by roughly 3/32”.

Once the glue cures the clamps are removed and a bottom bearing flush cutting router bit is used to trim the strip’s edge flush with the gate.  The photo shows the router setting on the new oversize edge strip with the bit set so the bearing rides against the gate allowing the carbide cutting edges to trim the strip flush with the gate.

Trimming the gate’s width to its new final width is next and done the same way as when the rounded edge was cut off.  Once trimmed the square edge can be rounded over with the router.  Here is what part of the new strip looks like once the installation and routing is completed.

Installing the new stainless steel door handle mechanism shown in the left photo is next starting by drilling two holes; the borehole and edge bore shown in the drawing on the right. 

Measuring and double checking for the location of the borehole for the handle assembly is done because if it gets drilled in the wrong place that’s a real problem.   Once the layout is done and triple checked the hole gets drilled using a hole saw in the drill press.  It’s cut about ¾ of the way through then the door is flipped over to finish cutting.  Cutting from both sides reduces the chance of splintering the backside when the hole saw breaks through.

The edge bore is drilled with a spade bit using a guide block (red arrow) whose hole is made with the same spade bit.  It helps keep me to drill the hole level and square to the edge of the door.

Because the latch assembly is set flush with the edge of the door a square flat-bottomed recess has to be cut.  Rather than trying to do this with hand chisels I built the jig shown in the top photo.  It consists of two “L” shaped pieces that clamp to the door so the latch assembly is centered and the plate just fits in the jig’s opening shown in the bottom photo.  The small router is used to cut the recess the same way as what was planned for the hinge pockets.

The only drawback with making the recess this way is that the corners are rounded rather than being square shown in the top left photo.  That’s not a problem if the piece being installed has rounded corners but in this case the latch plate has square corners.  Even so it’s easy to square up the corners with a chisel and install the latch.

At this point we mounted the doors back in the opening to check the final fitting.  Almost everything looked good except a little problem with the bottom hinges.  Because the jamb wasn’t quite plumb, we added a thin aluminum shim to bring the bottom hinge more in line with the top two.   With the door fitting the center of the strike plate is marked to line up with the latch assembly.  A modification of the latch assembly jig is used along with the router so the strike plate could be flush mounted.

About this time the owners were discussing the final painting color combination of the gates as having the body match the house trim and the Zia as some shade of turquoise.  Based on that I put this image together of a photo and a rendering of the gate with those colors to give them some idea of what it would look like.

There is one last wood piece needed for the gates and that’s the astragal or the stop attached to the inactive door.  Here it gets attached to the left gate when looking from the inside.  The two drawings show where it will get attached with the right drawing having the right gate is slightly open. 

This piece start by gluing up a couple of 2” x 65” pieces done the same way as many of the other glue-ups using the Type III glue and a lot of clamps.  It’s then cut down to needed thickness, width and length followed by rounding over the exposed edges with the router and lastly gluing, clamping and nailing it to the door.

Here is the gate hung and all the active door hardware installed.  There will be a matching dummy handle installed on the right door after the door is painted.  The doors have not been painted yet because it’s late February and might be a bit before the weather cooperates.  Once that’s done, I will post an update.

It's been an interesting project that started way back in early October with the selection of the rough sawn, undried cedar.  Real construction did not start until into November after the boards had dried enough to be stable.  The drying time was so short because the boards were fairly thin and it's really dry here in the desert.  The build has been interesting and fun and I am glad I did it but it's a project that falls in the, "Once is enough" category. 

Courtyard Gate – #12 Installing Zias, Completing Edge Roundovers, Jig for Hinge Pockets & Problems with the Door Hardware

The install of the Zia starts by drawing three circles centered on the panel.  The two inner circles are the inside and outside of the center Zia circle.  The outer circle is my reference line for setting the 16 bars or rays around the center circle.

I started the Zia install with the four rays shown in the top rendering.  The bottom left photo has the cross piece and guides set in place that were used to draw the center line.  The red arrow points to an added ¼” wide spacer that’s highlighted.  This spacer is used to locate the first ray in the bottom center photo.  Note the curved bottom of the ray is set to the outer circle drawn previously.  Next a ½” wide spacer is added to locate where the far-left ray goes, right photo.  After this test assembly the rays are glued and pin nailed in place with stainless steel pins.

Once the two sets of short rays are installed the long rays are next following the same process as the short rays.  The top photo shows two of the rays (highlighted) along with the locating spacers (red arrows) that insure an accurate repeatable placement of them.  Once all the rays are installed the center circle gets glued and nailed in.  The bottom photo shows the completed Zia.  One done and three more to go.

Here is what the gates look like with all four Zia’s completed.  You’ll have to take my word that the back side is done too. 😊

Cleaning up the previously routed interior corners is next.  The red circle in the drawing shows the intersection and the right top photo is a close view.  To give an idea of the relative size of the area worked on a dime is set next to the joint.  In the bottom left photo reference lines are added and a sharp chisel has made a cut where the intersecting radiused edges meet.  In the bottom center photo, the chisel has been used to rough out the arc.  Next a small file is used to round and smooth the surfaces and last some 220 grit sandpaper blends everything together while leaving a sharp intersection line where the two curved surfaces come together.  The first one took about 15 minutes to do as I was trying different methods to get an efficient process since there are 32 of these to do.  After a little practice I did get it down to less than 2 minutes each.

With all the radiused corners done adding a matching radius to the outside edges is next.  It’s done with the same router and bit used for the inside edges which had been set aside after the inside edges were routed.

At this point the gates are set in the existing wall opening and using a lot of clamps, spacers, wedges and shims they are adjusted to be plumb, level and square.  To our surprise the gates fit the opening with very little shimming required.  There was a tiny bit of shimming needed along the bottom jamb but that’s because they are a little bowed out of plumb there.  With the gates fitted to the opening reference lines are added from the existing pockets to where the hinges in the gates need to be cut in so they exactly align with the hinges in the existing jambs.  That’s done by using an adjustable machinist square to transfer their location to the doors while they were still shimmed in place. 

The owner decided to use stainless steel hardware to prevent rusting and to match the brushed nickel used on the rest of the house.  He did run into a problem in locating exterior hardware that’s actually made from stainless steel and not just plated with a “stainless” looking finish.  Once purchased I used one of the new hinges to make a jig (top photo).  The small router along with a top bearing bit cuts the width and length of the pocket.  Adjusting the depth of cut so the face of the hinge leaf ends up flush with the gate finishes the setup.  The bottom photos are of the router and bit.  The red arrow points to the bearing that rides against the jig whose outer edge matches the cutting edge.

Before cutting the pockets in the gate stiles, I used some cutoffs from the project to do a test assembly using the new stainless-steel hinges.  Unfortunately, the gap between the jamb and the stile was considerably less than with the original hinges.  This would have caused one of the gates to hit the brick cap on the courtyard wall as shown below. 

Not wanting to try and cut the brick or do anything to it the only other option is to move the gate away from the jamb.  To do that instead of cutting a pocket in the gate for the hinges they will be surface mounted which moves the gate the thickness of the hinge leaf away from the brick.  Using the reference lines penciled in earlier for the top and bottom limits of the existing jamb pockets I used the jig that had been designed to cut the pockets to mark the outline of the hinge for their mounting locations. 

With that done the hinge can be clamped in place, pilot holes drilled and the hinge installed using two of the four screws.  If everything fits up when the gate is attached to the jamb the other screws will be added.  If not, then the gate can be adjusted and the other two screws can be used.  The original holes would then be plugged and the screws reinstalled in their new location. 

The gates are then mounted in place with the hinges set in the existing jamb pockets and fortunately they all fit perfectly with no relocation needed.  When checked the surface mounting provided a sufficient gap between the brick and the gate shown in the photo below solving that problem.

With the doors in place, we checked the fit of the latch throw or moving part of the latch (red arrow) and found it is too short to securely fasten the door.  This means that the gap between the gates needs to be reduced.  To do that requires a thin piece of wood to be glued onto the jamb edge of the left gate.  Not the news I was anticipating at this point in the project.

Next Up – Adding Edge Extension, Installing Latch Assembly, Strike Plate & Astragal

Courtyard Gate – #11 Installing Infill panels, Fitting/Gluing Mortise Plugs & Marking Zia Reference Lines

Before adding the center infill panel shown highlighted in the top drawing, I need to install the infill plug that blocks rain from entering the groove in the bottom rail discussed in the last post.  The area where the plug goes is circled in red in the drawing.   It will fill a small gap shown by the red arrows.  The left photo shows the plug ready to install and the right photo has it installed closing up the small gap. 

With that done the center panel can be added.  It is not glued in but held in place using the stainless-steel pin nails at its center.  This way it’s free to move within the grooves as humidity changes but will always be centered.  The photo also has the right or since the gate is laying down the top panel just set in place.

The final major assembly is next consisting of the last infill panel and the highlighted stile.  When the left panel was installed, it was glued to the stile and clamped in place while the glue cured.  That process won’t work for the last panel since the center panel is where the clamp would go.  To get around that problem spacers are put in each of the tongue and groove openings (red circle) sized so the edge of the right panel is just a tiny bit proud of the tenon’s shoulder.   Being proud makes the stile provide the clamping pressure when it is installed and the spacers keep the center panel from moving.  The red circle is the enlarged area in the bottom photo.

Making and installing the square plugs that fill where the screws were installed in the stiles is next.  There are five square mortises in each stile so in total 20 plugs are required.  The top right drawing has one of the mortises identified with a red arrow.  The blanks (top left photo) for the plugs were made in post 6 Cutting Tenons, More Mortises & Making Plugs for Screws and have been sitting until needed.  In checking them, they have developed a little bow along their length.  This is not a problem as they are oversize.  Correction is simple because they are short so the high points can be set against the table saw fence and the crown cut off.  With that done the freshly cut straight edge is set against the fence and the opposite edge is cut straight.  Now square and flat the blanks get ripped to a 64th of an inch oversize (bottom photo).

Using the thickness sander the slightly oversize blanks are brought down to just a couple thousands of an inch oversize for an interference fit.

Cutting the plugs to length is done on the chop saw.  Because the length of the plug is not critical, I just drew a pencil line on the blue plastic piece.  The inset is a closer view and in it you can see the pencil line (red arrow).

To make installation of the plugs a little easier a slight taper is added to about half of the plug.  The angle is set by tilting the table on the big disk sander.  That’s shown in the top photo where I used a .010” feeler gauge to set the tilt.  I wasn’t sure how much to tilt the table so used a feeler gauge allowing additional small adjustments to be easily made.  The bottom left photo shows the plug getting its taper added and the bottom right photo is a closer view.  When sanding the exposed top of the plug is face down on the table and the plug gets rotated a quarter turn to get all the faces.

The plugs are epoxied in place and to install the door is set at a comfortable working height using the adjustable part of my work bench.  The red arrow is pointing to one of two pipe clamps that lets me raise or lower the support shelf so the work is at the desired height.

To glue the plugs in place the mixed epoxy gets applied to the inside of the mortise then the plug is driven in until it’s just proud of the stile.  That’s shown in the top photo.  I did not wipe off the excess epoxy but left it in place to fill any gaps that there may be between the plugs and the stile.  After an overnight cure the plugs are sanded flush with the stile ending up with what’s shown in the bottom photo.

As an aside here are dotted lines showing the mortise and tenon joint along with the square mortise where the structural screws were inserted.  The red arrow points to the approximate depth of the plug.

 The Zia installation is next.  In order to look right the parts that make up the Zia need to be centered and square with the infill panels.  When I was working on the center panel, I marked the center of that board and used that line to set its left to right location centering it between the middle and bottom rails.  This gives me my vertical center reference line.  The horizontal center line is added as follows.  To start, a pair of spacers are cut the same length and slightly over half the height of the infill panels.  Next, they are set in the panel between the rails and half their overlap is marked then cut off on the chop saw shown in the top photo.  They are set on the panels again and if still too long another cut is taken.  It only takes a couple of tries to get a perfect fit.  That’s shown in the bottom photo with the inset showing where they meet.

These two guides are set against the stiles and up against the center rail.  A cross piece is butted up to them and a couple of other sticks are used to wedge the cross piece in place.  Now it’s easy to mark a perfectly centered square line using the left side of the cross piece (red arrow) across the panels.  If there was only one Zia to install, I would not have gone to this trouble but there are four and they need to line up perfectly to look right.  With all the measuring needed to locate the 17 pieces in the Zia there is a lot of room for error and this reduces that chance.

Next Up – Installing Zias, Completing Edge Roundovers, Jig for Hinge Pockets & Problems with the Door Hardware