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
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