This was a great project here on Pender Island where I was able to make some non-symmetrical gates. The clients have a small permaculture farm and had recently fenced the front of the property and created a parking area outside the fence. They wanted to still be able drive into the yard as needed but were planning on mainly parking outside and walking through the gates. This lead me to suggesting we make one larger gate which could stay fixed in a closed postion (with a cane bolt) most of the time and make the other side a smaller pedestrian gate. In this case the larger gate is almost 8′ and smaller one about 4′ wide. The pedestrian gate is latched to the large gate stile and allows them to use this as the main entrance.
I used pintle strap hinges to hang the gates, and mounted the posts on metal brackets to keep the wood up off the ground. The clients also let me play around a bit with the design of the gates, and again use a non symmetrical flow with the top rails. The gates are made from salvaged red cedar driftwood and split by hand, then left rough without coatings to go silver in the sun. I like to use the ends of the rails for the tenons (3″x3″x3/4″ usually) and chisel the mortises into the stiles. I glue all the joints when I assemble the gates and then drill and peg each with hardwood dowel (the glue in the joint also seeps into the dowel and holds in place along with the tension). The latch is one I designed and had made by Jeri at Thistlerock Forge, as he makes all of my custom hardware. Thank you to Roz and Michael for a fun project!
