Ron visited the town of Gloucester, Massachusetts, America's oldest seaport. Residents, such as Mike Carrigan and Lisa Hollett, are proud of this town's history and they like their home to reflect this history in traditional New England style. That's why they enclosed their deck with a classic latticework fence, featuring a decorative archway over the stairs. The deck was perfect until their two-year-old daughter, Kashlyn, began pushing farther and farther in her childhood explorations. Now, Mike and Lisa need a gate under the archway and Ron is just the man to help them build it.
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1. Design:
- Since the gate would need to not only provide security for Kashlyn but also enhance the traditional look of the home, Ron designed it with both purposes in mind. His design included an arched top that mirrored the arch on the top of the entryway. He also included latticework in his design, to blend with the latticework on the existing fence.
- View, download and print Ron's Outdoor Gate Drawings
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2. Glue wood
- Mike and Lisa joined Ron on the driveway where he had laid out the lumber for the gate. He showed them the big piece out of which they would cut the arched shape that would be used for the top.
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- Ron showed them the pieces that would form the side and the 4 X 4 for the bottom of the gate.
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- The large piece was made by gluing two 2 X 12s together with waterproof glue and then clamping them firmly together while the glue dried.
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- To create the side pieces, they glued not just two, but three boards together to form a sandwich.
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- Ron used a brush to spread the polyester glue. The glue was stiff and not easily spread, but it was important to get as much of an even coating as possible.
- Ron cautioned that this type of glue was very strong and impossible to remove from clothing.
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- Polyester glue cures or dries by reacting to moisture so Ron brushed water on the face of the bottom board to promote a better bond when the two surfaces were joined together.
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- Lisa aligned the end of the middle board with a line Ron had drawn on the bottom board. They repeated the process with the top section.
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- When assembled, the shorter centerboard and the two longer outside boards formed notches at each end, called mortises.
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- The next step was to cut tongues, or tenons, in the ends of the top and bottom rails. These would fit snugly into the mortises creating very strong joints.
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3. Cut tenons
- To form the tenons, they used a power miter box to cut away each place that Ron had drawn an X on the wood. Ron set the saw so that it only came part of the way down.
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- Ron explained how they would place the first piece of wood in the saw, line the blade up with that first line and then make a series of repetitive passes back and forth, each time pulling the wood out just a little bit, until they'd removed the entire section Ron had marked.
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- Shaving away the board one saw blade's width at a time, Mike and Lisa created the first half of the tenon. Then, they flipped the board over, and finished the job.
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- After cutting a second tenon on the opposite end of the bottom rail…
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- …they repeated the process for the top rail.
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