Project: Building a Side Gate

[valve90210]

Hi All

I'm looking to sort out a side gate to give a bit more privacy down the side of my house and to make the passage way a more useable space.

Obviously on one side of the passage way is my house, the other side is a brick outhouse/shed belonging to the neighbours. I have asked about attaching gate posts etc to the brickwork and have been told that it's fine to do so.

The passage way is approximately 6 feet wide ands has a three foot concrete path running down it. The path is about a foot from the wall on the house side and 2 feet from the outhouse wall.

My plan is for a 6 foot x 4 foot featherboard gate to be hinged on the house wall and then to build a framework to fill the gap on the other side. I did look at a single 6foot gate but as they length of the passage where I am building the gate is only about 14feet long it would make too much of the passage unuseable due to the swing of the gate.

I have done a lot of ringing around to find somewhere that would make me up a gate as most tend to be 3 feet wide, and they are going to a) Cost a fair bit of money and b) take 3 or 4 weeks to be produced....

So, I'm wondering how easy/hard it would be to make my own featherboard gate??

I've done some googling and by the looks of things it 'should' be a fairly simple process (albeit a bit time consuming to ensure the featherboarding was straight and level etc).

Has anyone (who isn't a carpenter ;)) had a go at making their own gates and if so how did you find it??

[Chop]

I have made a few gates before today, not the featherboard variety more picket fence gates of various sizes, and shed doors too thinking about it, but they were t&g.

It is essentially a frame and the featherboard on top, each gives the other rigidity.

when I did mine it was just a 'Z' frame which takes the hinges and the vertical board screwed to it.

I built mine laid out on the floor for ease of checking squares and to make sure it was relatively flat and then hung it from a post attached to a wall.

I always have my diagonal brace running down from the top hinge, I have seen some that come down from the latch side and finish at the bottom hinge - I am not sure which is more technically correct but hopefully someone will give us the answer.

I would say it is within the realms of the majority of DIYers.

[Timllfixit]

always have my diagonal brace running down from the top hinge, I have seen some that come down from the latch side and finish at the bottom hinge - I am not sure which is more technically correct but hopefully someone will give us the answer.

I would have thought the brace is to stop the far side (opposite the hinges) from dropping, and so should go from the bottom hinge to the top/latch side, (opposite the hinges)-in the case of a simple "ledge and brace" door or gate. Purely from an engineering point of view.

Stouter doors and gates often have a central rail(or ledge) across the middle, and two braces, each one from the hinge side up. So the bottom one goes from the bottom rail(hinge side) to the latch side of the middle rail, and the top brace goes from the middle rail to the top rail, latch side. A middle rail also adds thickness to fit locks/staples or through/drop latches in the case of gates.

I have seen some that come down from the latch side and finish at the bottom hinge

I guess they are hung the wrong way round. I expect they are "pre made" gates, and probably only come one way round(ie, right hand hinged). If their post is on the wrong side, or they wan't to see the the "good" side, one has to hang them the wrong way round.


A brace that comes away from the top hinge side and goes down only supports the gate by it's fixings, whereas one that runs from the bottom hinge side up also actually supports the gate properly, as the weight of the gate is always pushing on it.(think of it as a rectangular box that is always trying to parallellogram) It's probably academic in most cases, but the latter probably adds life.

[Chappy]

I was always told the brace should go from the hinge side at the bottom, up to the latch side at the top, so that the brace is in compression with the weight of the gate, rather than in tension.

[big-all]

whilst a solid gate is great for privicy this also applies to burgulars

[Timllfixit]

I was always told the brace should go from the hinge side at the bottom, up to the latch side at the top, so that the brace is in compression with the weight of the gate, rather than in tension.

Which is more or less what I said....only put better!

[dewaltdisney]

Usually I make up a gate using tongue and groove boards. With a top middle and bottom (5 to 6" wide) cross rails nailed through from from the front. The diagonal braces, hinge side middle and bottom rail up, are then cut in to suit and nailed through. Use ring shank nails.

If you can, use cramps to hold the T&G boards tight whilst nailing on the cross rails or make up some jigs and use wedges. It just makes it much less likely to be floppy if it is all tight to start.

The cost of the timber is the biggest consideration and some old floorboards from a reclamation yard might be a cheap way?

DWD

[valve90210]

Last week I ordered up all my wood etc in preparation for getting on with building on Saturday...Cue the rain...

Friday, along with all my wood came torrential rain throughout the day and over night, Saturday's construction work was looking less likely, however my parents in true British fashion, were not to be put off and along they came bringing with them a pop-up gazebo to go over the driveway allowing us to work despite the rain.

After spending a good bit of time explaining to my Dad how I wanted the frame work to be constructed I finally managed to get it across to him (bless him, he's great at diy etc but not great at visualising things) and we started to crack on.

As it was tipping it down for a lot of the day, and because my phone is dying on me, I didn't take many photos but those below give some idea of the work we did and how it has progressed.

Framework for the side panel


Made slightly more complicated by the over hanging concrete block that forms the roof of the neighbours' outhouse but simply mounting one post onto the wall and a second on to that post it is nice and sturdy.

Until we can to do the digging out for the post that is next to the path, we weren't sure if we'd be able to concrete this post in place, as luck would have it we dug down easily (unlike everywhere I've tried digging previously here) and were able to get it concreted in place. so this frame is going nowhere!

You can see the old 'gate' in the background, it is so flimsy it will definitely be a simple task to remove it once my new gate is finished!

The side panel frame again:


See all that water in the hole with the fence post, that's from about 10 minutes of rain...it was tipping it down but we were lucky to have a break in the rain which allowed us to get the post concreted in place.

My first attempts at half lapping:



My dad thought this was a terrible and time consuming way of building the framework until I showed him how to do it using the depth stop on my sliding mitre saw, after which he agreed it was a good idea! :)

This is not the final gate! :)



Frame work all finished. After this was done we put together the frame for the gate (though I didn't get a photo)

Now 'all' that's left is featherboarding and hanging the gate...

[Chop]

Looking absolutely solid!

I tried working with my dad on his shed the other week - did my head in! He insist on nailing everything, he's such a ludditte. Bless 'em indeed.

[valve90210]

Saturday morning was an early start for me as I had to load a couple of unused fence posts and a £20 box of unwanted wood screws into the car to be returned to the timber merchant. I also needed to pick up some hinges and bolts and a couple of lengths of 3 x 2 for the bracing of my gate.

Having done so, my parents arrived and we set about finishing off the gate.

The first job was adding the bracing to the gate followed by the hinges.



(the top of the gate is nearest the camera)

After a good bit of measuring and checking fit etc, we then feather boarded the gate. and got it into place.

A bit more work (and no pics sadly) and we got the side panel boarded too, along with a godo bit of discussion about how to mount the gate stop, we got that in place too. by lunchtime the baording was all finished and the gate fully hung and with top and bottom bolts in place.

Front


Back


All that remains to be done is a strip across the top of the gate (hence the gap that's there at the moment) to protect the tops of the feather board, and a lock which I'm currently deciding upon.

All in all I'm really quite pleased with the way it's turned out, it's really nice and solid and looks really smart. :)

[Job and Knock]

Congratulations on a nice neat job! Thank you for sharing