Courtyard Gate – #9 Grooving Infill Panel, Rounding Inside Edges & Zia Blanks

To keep the infill panels flush and in the same plane they will be connected with tongue and groove joints illustrated in the top drawing.  The bottom photo is the setup that's the same process used to make the grooves for the panels to fit into in the rails.  

Likewise, the tongues to fit in the grooves are made the same way as the stepped tenons for the ends of the infill panels.

Before a full dry assembly is done there is one more piece of work needed for the infill panels.  The area I am referring to on the gate is circled in red in the upper left drawing and enlarged in the lower left drawing.  The area highlighted in blue is a gap that will funnel water down the expansion joint into the dado in the bottom rail and I don’t want that to happen.  The gap is there because the thickness of the tenon that joins the infill panels is narrower than the bottom rail groove.  The fix is cut away a small piece of the tenon that fits into the base rail and add a small filler piece.  In the upper right photo, the bottom rail has been removed to make the cut part of the tenons visible.  The lower right drawing shows the highlighted filler piece to be glued into the dado in the bottom rail.  This will block the opening in the panel’s expansion slot yet still allow the infill panels to move in response to environmental conditions.  The block will get glued in place at the final infill assembly.

Anyway, this is the table saw setup for cutting out the small piece of the tenon.

Next all the current pieces are dry assembled and clamped together.  At this point final assembly is getting close although there are still some miscellaneous details to be take care of.

One of those is to do some light sanding where the stiles and rails meet to make sure they are absolutely flush.  Once that’s done the interior edges get routed using a small radius bit to soften the interior edges of the stiles and rails.  The top photo shows the router and bit at an inside corner.  One problem with rounding an inside corner is the routed edge ends up as a curve rather than a clean intersection of the two radiused edges.  That’s shown in the bottom photo and I don’t like the way it looks.  To give a clean intersection requires some hand work which will be done after the final assembly is complete when everything is glued together.  I’ll cover that process then.  The outside edges will also get rounded after the final glue up.

After disassembling the gates, I decided to do just a little more work with the router to simplify the hand work discussed above once the gate is glued together.  The left photo shows the little “horns” where the router bit couldn’t get all the way into the corner between the rail and the stile.  Once dissembled it’s easy to touch these up as shown in the right photo and save some handwork later on.

At this point the final assembly glue up can start but because there are a lot of pieces that need to go together at the same time the Type III waterproof glue that’s been used so far won’t work.  That's because I need a longer working time than it has.  What will be used is a one-hour epoxy that’s been ordered.  In the meantime, the material for Zia’s applique shown in white in the rendering can be worked on.  The vertical bars will have their grain running vertically just like the panel they will be glued to so they are easy to make.  However, the horizontal bars are different in that to match the vertical grain of the panel they need to be glued up so that the grain runs vertically across the piece’s short dimension and not along their long dimension.  This necessitated gluing up the short wide panels shown.

Before making the Zia’s components I put together a full-size mock-up of the Zia on the door made from cardboard.  The one on the left being the current design and a second one where the center element is solid rather than open.   My guess was when given the option the owners would choose the original design and they did.  It was a simple task to cut one more cardboard piece to make sure since seeing an object full size in person does not always look just like the drawing. 

Cutting all the blanks for the Zia’s is up next and there are a lot of blanks to be cut.  Each Zia has 16 individual bars plus the center circle so that’s 17 pieces per Zia and there are four of them so it’s 68 pieces total.  Using the previously glued-up blanks for the short cross grain group I cut the 16 required plus a handful of extras for testing and in case there were problems.  Same thing for the longer pieces.  Here are the finished stacks not including the four pieces for the center circles.

There was one unexpected problem with one of the long boards in that it decided to warp when making the next to last cut to give me a pretty good curve.    Fortunately, the last piece was wide enough for an easy fix.   Process is to cut the curved piece into rough lengths which reduced to amount of curve per piece to a manageable amount.  Next is to run pieces through table saw with high end points against the fence cutting off the curve and giving me one straight edge.  Last, is to flip the board so the new straight edge is against the fence and cut the piece to final width.  That said, I will let the pieces sit to see if they are going to move or are now stable.

Next Up – Making Zia Parts & Installing 1st Infill Panel

Courtyard Gate – #8 Finishing the Latillas & Starting the Infill Panels

With the latillas turned it’s time to add the hand-hewn look to them.  Since everybody was happy with the prototype piece that look will be replicated.   It had the faceted 6 face layout drawn on one end and that worked fine.  However, so I don’t have to go through the layout process on both ends of each of the latillas a template gets made that can be traced onto the blank’s end.  As a refresher the layout starts using a compass to draw a circle the same diameter as the blank.  Next, with the point positioned on the edge an arc is drawn starting at the edge, passing through the center and intersecting the circle.  The point where that arc intersects is my center point for the next arc and the process is repeated six times.  After that the intersecting points along the edge are connected with a straight line.  That’s shown in the upper left-hand photo.  The upper right photo is after the pattern has been roughly cut out on the scroll saw.  Second the sawn edges are smoothed using the big disk sander per the lower-left photo.  Last in the bottom right the pattern has a ¼” hole drilled in it and one of the aluminum pins used to locate the pattern where its perimeter is transferred to the end of the blank.

Next the blank is loaded into the lathe with the left end mounted at the head stock (top photo) on the aluminum pin in the just made jig while the right end is mounted on a pin held in place using a drill chuck and another aluminum rod.  The chuck can be used in the tailstock since the lathe won’t be running for the shaping.

Last step before shaping the blank is to draw horizontal lines along the face of the blank at the points of the hexagon drawn on the blank’s end to act as a general guide when doing the shaping.

The shaping is done the same way as the test piece in Post 4, Making Latilla Sample.  The top photo is a finished example.  In close examination of the finish surface there were more of the circular scratches left in the flat areas than I wanted.  You can see them in the close-up middle photo.  A little hand sanding with some 120-grit paper cleaned them up (bottom photo).

Here is a dry fit of the frame and the installed latillas held in place with the aluminum pins. 

While the latilla’s fit great I want to do something more to lock them in place to prevent loosening over time besides end grain gluing them in.   Here is the test assembly where I used the prototype latilla and a scrap section of rail adding an aluminum nail (red arrow).  It will act as a reference pin mechanically locking things in place and the aluminum won’t rust.  Once the latilla was driven onto the nail it was pretty solid.  With success in the test, I added pins to the top end of all six latillas.

The last major part of the gate to add is the lower infill panels shown highlighted in the drawing below.  The panels will go into grooves cut in the middle and bottom rails.  Process to cut the grooves is to roughly center the saw blade in the rail set to the proper depth then make a pass through the saw.  That’s shown in the center photo.  The piece is then flipped end to end and run though the saw again making a perfectly centered wider groove in the piece. 

To widen the cut the saw’s fence gets moved a little to the right and the pieces are run thru the saw twice, once from each direction.  This process is repeated until the groove reaches the desired width.  The photo shows the completed grooves with the left rail’s finished groove up.  The process is the same for both the middle and bottom rails but their width differs because of the way the infill panels are installed.  More on that below.

In the drawing on the left the white part is the center rail and the dark part is the infill panel.  In it the panel is the same width as the groove.  The drawing on the right the dark part is the infill panel and the white part is the bottom rail.  Here the panel is stepped down so there is a small shoulder (red arrow) that rests on the bottom rail.  That has to do with keeping the moisture out of the bottom groove.  With the top rail when it’s raining water will shed off the top rail and infill panel and won’t collect where the rail and panel meet.  The bottom rail is different because without the step the rain will run down the face of the panel and collect in the groove encouraging the rot just like the existing gate.  The obvious solution of gluing the panel in place sealing out the rain won’t work.  That’s because the wood grain in the panels runs 90 degrees to the grain in the rails and the panels have to be free to expand and contract due to moisture changes.

The step part of the tenon is roughed out on the table saw then fitted using the router.  It is almost identical to the method used to make the tenons for the ¾” wide mortises.  The fence on the table saw defines the length of the tenon while the blade height is set to cut the tenon a couple hundredths thick so the router can be used for fine tuning.  Below is the table saw setup along with a close view.

Because there is a slight variance of 2-3 hundredths of an inch between all the panels in thickness the tenons need to be fine-tuned to just fit.  Remember when cutting the tenons I am not directly cutting their thickness but am cutting the depth of the step so as the piece varies in thickness so does the tenon.   The router is used to shave off a few thousands of an inch per pass to get that perfect fit.  Here is the setup.

This is what one set of panels look like in-place.  The panels are not cut to length or width and still need tongue and groove edges to lock together which is next but it gives you an idea of how they go together.

Next Up – Grooving Infill Panel, Rounding Inside Edges & Zia Blanks

Courtyard Gate – #7 Making the Latillas & a Jig – Part 1

The upper part of each gate has three latillas installed in the opening.  The left drawing shows them highlighted.  The right drawing is an exploded X-Ray view that shows the pins that will hold the latillas in place.  In the original gate these were wooden dowls and they rotted off enough so that one completely fell out.  To prevent this from happening with these gates a ¼” aluminum dowel (red arrow) will be used. 

I started by laying out the pin hole locations (top photo) and marked them all at once to make sure they all lined up.  That’s followed up by going to the drill press and setting its fence so the pins would all be centered (bottom photos) and drilling them.

To cut the pins I made a quick clamping bracket and mounted it in the bench vice (top photo).  After pushing the rod through the hole and measuring it a clamp holds it tight in place.  Next a jigsaw with a metal cutting blade is used to cut the dowel free.   Once cut the ends are somewhat ragged so they get mounted in the lathe (bottom photo) where a file is used to cleanup the end and add a small bevel to ease the entry into the drilled hole.

The latillas are next.  The blanks have been set aside and when checked there were no problems, everything is still straight, flat and true.   The blanks are made from four layers and because the layers are different thickness the glued-up blanks vary in total thickness but the width is the same albeit oversize and wider than they are thick.  Passing each of them through the table saw got them down to the same required width and square.  

Because I want the center glue joint centered on the blank getting them to the same thickness would be time consuming since all the amounts cut off would be different because of the layers different thicknesses so a roundabout method is used.  It starts by locating the center along the width which in the photo is left-to-right dimension.  Rather than try and measure the exact center I get close, mark from both sides then split the difference.  The jeweler’s magnifying headset helps me hit the side-to-side center.  A closer view is shown in the inset.  Top to bottom dimension across the layers is what varies.  I get around that by using the glue line as my center line then drawing a circle a bit larger than the size of the latilla’s blank with a compass. 

To make the initial turning a bit easier the four corners of all the latilla blanks get cut off so I end up with an octagon.  The corners are cut off using the bandsaw set at 45 degrees.  To set the amount to cut off the blank is placed on the bandsaw table and the fence is adjusted so the blade is close to the circle on the blank’s end.  The left photo shows what I mean and the right photo shows the last corner cut off.  Since I don’t need to hit the line exactly if its close that’s good enough for this operation which means the fence does not have to be moved very often.  The bottom photo is of all six latilla blanks ready to be turned.

The top photo shows the octagonal blank set between centers ready to be turned round and the bottom photo shows the finished cylinder turned to a constant required diameter of 1 ½”.

Thinking through the process needed to make the latillas from the cylinder I saw a problem with the machining process.  When I did the test piece there was no need to drill the holes for the aluminum mounting pins.  However, the actual pieces will need to have those holes drilled while the blank is still a cylinder so they are centered in the blank.  That has to be done before the freehand shaping since I can’t hold an irregular shape in the lathe to drill the hole and with the holes I can’t mount it between centers to do the freehand shaping.  The end result is a detour to make a specialty jig to hold the blank after the holes are drilled while the freehand shaping is done.  The jig starts out with a wood block that gets bandsawn into a rough cylinder.

Next a cylindrical blank gets turned smooth and to size between centers.

It’s then removed from the lathe and the spur drive swapped out to a 4-jaw chuck so the blank can be clamped in place.  In the top photo a small inset is drilled for clearance when the jig is installed on a live center.  In the bottom photo a hole has been drilled that gets threaded so the jig can be screwed onto the live center. 

Here’s the tap used to cut the threads and the finished threaded hole.

The center finder is put into the drill chuck and the center of the jig gets marked for drilling the ¼” hole the aluminum dowel will go in.

This is the completed jig screwed on to the live center (red arrow) with the aluminum dowel inserted ready to be used.

To drill the holes in the latillas the drive center is removed and the 4-jaw chuck is installed.  The cylindrical latilla blank is clamped in the 4-jaw chuck with a second live center in the tail stock to make sure the cylinder is aligned correctly.  This is all done in the top photo.  Next the live center in the tail stock gets removed and the ¼” drill bit in a drill chuck gets mounted in the tail stock (bottom photo) so the hole can get drilled.

 Next Up – Finishing the Latillas & Starting the Infill Panels

Courtyard Gate – #6 Cutting Tenons, More Mortises & Making Plugs for Screws

Here is what the stiles look like with all the mortises cut.  The six stacked pieces in the background are the rails that will get tenons cut on them next.

Before starting to make the tenons I checked to make sure the miter fence was square with the blade.  Checking with a square can get close but when making these large tenons close isn’t good enough.  There is a simple method that requires just two scrap pieces of wood 2” to 3” wide and about 15” long with one long edge marked “Fence” (red arrow).  This edge is butted up against the fence and both pieces are cut.

Next, the cut edge is set on the table saw with the “Fence” note pointed to the right and the pieces are slid until they touch as in the left photo.  There should be no gap between the long edges since both pieces were cut with the same fence/saw blade orientation.  If there is a gap it’s probably due to the long edges being warped.  Here there is no gap so the right board gets rotated 180 degrees so now the “Fence” marks are pointed toward each other (the “Fence" text is on the back of the right board) as in the right photo.  If there is no gap along the long vertical edges then the fence is square with the blade.  If there is a gap at the top or bottom it will be twice the out-of-square amount and the fence needs to be adjusted.  The process is repeated until there is no gap.

Cutting the tenons is next.  The cheeks or outside faces are cut first using a shop made tenoning jig shown in the left photo.  The right photo is a closer view after the first cut has been made.  To cut the opposing cheek the piece is rotated 180 degrees and cut.  Since the tenons and rails are all the same thickness all six rails get cut with the same setup.

Next is to cut away the thin waste piece on both sides of the tenon.  In the photo below the top waste piece has been cut away and the bottom is ready to cut.  Once set all the rails get cut the same.

The last bit of work on the table saw it to make the first cut for the removal of the tenon’s offset.  The left photo shows the back side of the rail before the cut and the right photo is after the cut has been made.

Using the fence on the bandsaw (left photo) a consistent width cut is made to remove the offset waste which completes the majority of the work on the tenon.  All the tenons are cut a couple hundredths thick to leave a buffer for final fitting in case there was any variance in the rail thickness.  The right photo has them stacked up ready for final fitting.

There is one other bit of work before the final fitting and that was to take my small hand plane and chamfer the leading edge of the tenon (red arrow).  This will make the initial insertion of the tenon into the mortise easier.

The final fitting is done on the router table using a ½” straight router bit.  Using the router table’s fence the tenon is pushed up against a miter fence running in the gold track to keep the piece square with the router table fence.  However, before doing cutting I measured the tenon thickness and wrote the size on the tenon then worked fitting from the thickest tenon to the thinnest.  Process is to raise the router bit until it just touches the face of the tenon.  Multiple passes are made across the router bit until the entire face has had a skim cut made.  The board is flipped and the other side of the tenon gets the same treatment.  A test fit is made and if the fit is too tight the router bit is raised a few thousands of an inch and the process is repeated until the tenon just slides in place.  I then move on to the next thickest tenon.

Here are the two frames dry fitted.  In checking them for squareness the diagonals were within 1/32” of matching which is pretty good but I think I can probably improve that some when gluing them up.

After disassembling the dry-fit doors some more mortises need to be made.  They are for the structural screws that will reinforce the joints between the stiles and rails.  The drawing below shows an X-Ray view of the corner joint where the 4” screw goes from the bottom of the mortise through the stile into the tenon and on into the body of the rail.

In the photos below the highlighted areas show where these mortises will be cut.  The top photo shows the layout done on one of the stiles with the other three stiles set so the mortises for the tenons are shown.  The bottom two photos are a closer view.

With the mortises laid out stops are set in the mortising machine and they get cut just like before.

To not leave an exposed hole where the screws will be installed a plug gets glued in.  I could have glued up a ¾” square block a couple feet long and cut 1” long pieces off.  The problem with that is the exposed face would be end grain and I want the plug’s surface that’s exposed to be face grain to match the grain on the stile.  There are a couple of ways to get that but I chose gluing up layers so the face grain was at the end of the square block.  This method also let me use up a bunch of leftover pieces that either had knots, splits or were not going to be a lot of use.  Below is my starting group of rejects.  To get the needed size block requires a few steps.  

First is to rip the rejects to a common width then face glue and clamp them together in layers shown in the top photo.  The bottom photo shows the glued-up blanks.  Only the bottom two blanks will get used for now.

These two blanks are roughly the same width and get their edges trimmed so they are flush.  Once that’s done, they get cut into pieces the same length as their width on the chop saw using a stop block to get consistent results. The results are the six pieces in the top photo.  Those get face glued into one long stack that when clamped up looks like this.

The glued-up block is then cut in half using the bandsaw because it’s too thick to cut in a single pass on the table saw. 

 The resulting blocks are thin enough to trim their edges flush on the table saw which are then ripped into four square oversize blanks.  They will be set aside for a while to see if there will be any movement before trimming to final size.

Next Up – Making the Latillas & a Jig – Part 1