Glue up strategies for complicated full size cedar gate?

[Tom Hyde]

353178

353180

353179

My design ideas might have exceeded my ability to actually glue this thing up. This is a full-size cedar gate, 52" x 77", 2.25" thick western red cedar (WRC), +/- 8% MC.

All mortises are cut (120 of them, including 96 for 8mm dominoes). Slip tenons throughout (all are 3/4" except dominoes). I've had good experience with Titebond III on WRC and plan to stick with that. After glue up I'll come back to pin the tenons of the top and bottom rails with 1/4" white oak dowels (two dowels on each slip tenon on the rail side from the top and bottom of gate).

Tenons:

Dominoes - 48 from the ends of the preassembled 2x2 grids into rails.
Blind slip tenons - 6 (4 on the four sides of the center circle, and 1 each at top and bottom of center into top and bottom rails)
Wedged through tenons - 6 from rails through stiles

This would be more straightforward if it wasn't for the circle in the center. Any slight variation (very slight) of the pieces off the circle will throw things out of square.

Strategies:

Pre-glue all dominoes into grid sections and slip tenons into "one side" of joint (not stiles of course!)
Should I pre-tape each domino and tenon to catch glue squeeze out?
Do I really need to alternate clamps top and bottom?
The table is dead flat (enough) to use as a guide in keeping the gate flat. I can use my Kreg trak/clamps on two sides to ensure starting squareness/flatness and other clamps of pieces to table for flatness. And any glue squeeze out will just pop off the formica top later.

Glue up sequence?
Would really appreciate any thoughts on sequence for this!!! Doing the entire unit at once in 10 minutes, even with one side of slip tenons pre-glued, seems optimistic. Any way to stage this further into more manageable steps while still being able to still get everything square? Because of the center circle and ability of pieces to pivot, I can't really figure a better sequence out.

Thank you for any ideas/assistance!!!

[Larry Edgerton]

Nice design, would also make a nice door! You did good.

What I do with a complicated door is glue up parts at a time but.... I use all the parts, dry fitting the ones that I am not gluing so that when I jump to the next stage they are where they need to be. Be careful to do it in a way that will allow you to take it back apart, and yes, there is a story there:)

This time of year if using titebond I wet the mortises and tenons down with a spritz bottle shortly before assembly as the wood is so dry on the surface that it immediately sucks the moisture out of the glue. It gives you another ten minutes before you are in trouble.

With that design I would consider slow epoxy, almost infinite time to get it clamped, clean up with solvent and call it a day, but there are a lot of people that do not like epoxy, so if you are one of those never mind. I do all of my exterior doors with West System though and have yet to have a failure, so there is that.

Have a friend that can help you manage the glueup/clamping? If something looks like I may get in trouble I will dry fit AND CLAMP up a project to make sure I have it down. No matter, as soon as you apply glue, seems parts get stubborn.;)



Nice gate, Larry

[Jerry Miner]

Any time I have a complicated glue-up, I try to break the process down into small, manageable pieces. Can you glue the grid sections up one-by one, as sub-assemblies, then glue the sub-assemblies together with the center stiles, rails, and medallion, then glue that assembly into the main stiles and rails, something like that?

You don't need to camp over-and-under as long as your clamping arrangement doesn't throw the assembly out-of-flat (or out-of-square).

Your choice, but IIWM, I would not try to tape 120 mortises---I would try to be judicious with the glue and clean up after. YMMV

[Sam Blasco]

If you use epoxy you'll have plenty of open time to do the whole thing in one go and be able to play with the joints as needed. If you use wood glue I would think two sessions would do, but you run the risk of alignment issues if you leave too much time between session one and two. If you do session two right after session one the adhesive will still be pliable enough to jiggle and wiggle. Do the cross pieces first, then add the slats and the top and bottom rails, then the stiles. I also wonder if any adhesive is really necessary on the slats, just let the tenons (dominos) stay loose, or just glue on the center tenons. It is not a panel door, but there will be movement from season to season.

[Andy Giddings]

+1 on all the above - there was a recent thread about extending the open time of Titebond III (if that is what you want to use) by adding water. If I remember this gives you about another 10 mins on top of normal open time

[Lee Schierer]

I would glue up the pieces of the cross first, using the outer frame as a jig with all dominoes installed, but none are glued to the outer frame. Then I would glue up the four grid pieces one at a time using the outer frame and cross as a jig. Assemble the four grid pieces to the cross only using the outer frame as an alignment jig. Then finally I would assemble the grids and cross assembly to the outer frame as the final glue up. This should keep each section properly aligned while minimizing the number of glue joints you need to work with at each step.

[Wayne Lomman]

I agree with the epoxy idea. There is another reason as well. If it is a gate subject to weathering, you will regret using titebond lll in about 5 years time. It doesn't like exposure to weather in the long term and this looks way too special a project to have all the exposed edges of the joints look like they are cracking in a few years. I have a house full of wrc windows and doors doing this (46 widows and 16 doors). They are not breaking but they look like it. So, epoxy is my advice. Cheers

[Mel Fulks]

Wayne, if the doors are not sagging and getting hard to open ,I think the WRC might just be shrinking a little. They sell it in so many grades,some are just air dried.

[Eric Schmid]

Beautiful work!

I would use epoxy as suggested and glue the whole gate at once. Since you are already set up for TBIII...

I'd probably start with the cross. Once all the joints are glued, clamp it with the frame. This assumes you also have one side of the loose tenon glued and dried in either rails/stiles or ends of the cross. Obviously don't glue the outside of the cross to the rails and stiles yet. Square up the assembly.

Once this dries do the same with the upper pickets. Clamp it in the frame, check for square. Repeat for bottom pickets.

Now glue the rails and stiles to the cross and lower pickets. If you can, use epoxy for the structural joints (rails to stiles). This will perform better than TBIII and provide more time to get the pickets coated and set. Where the joints are flush, cleanup can be completed after the epoxy dries; scrape and sand.

You can probably skip the glue on the upper side of the pickets, specifically the tenon, to buy some time. This would include the upper rail to picket and the cross to lower picket. I would definitely glue the shoulders on the downstream side, however; where the lower picket meets the lower rail and upper meets the cross. This is to keep water and debris out.

If you go this route you can glue the lower pickets to the lower rail before final assembly (instead of the cross). This reduces the number of joints that have to be glued in the final stage.

Even in stages it looks like one or two extra sets of hands would be helpful.

[David Helm]

I will come at it from a different perspective. I, too, live in Washington State. During my many years as a carpenter I have built many, many gates (all pretty complex) from WRC. I would glue and pin the rails and stiles plus the cross pieces. I would not glue all those pretty little verticles, let them move with the weather changes. You will have less possibility of breaking those small pieces that way. What are you using for finish? If no finish all will turn grey which I personally prefer. Otherwise, about the only really durable finish in Washington (Western that is) is Sikkens.

[Wayne Lomman]

You could be right Mel. I didn't purchase the timber personally. I do know that wrc is generally imported as green flinches, then ripped and kiln dried, but in this case I turned up at the job to be confronted with a B-double load of timber. Cheers

[Bradley Gray]

I agree with David - no need to glue every M&T

I build shoji from time to time and the only thing that gets glued are the M&T at the corners.

[John Lankers]

Very nice work, Tom.
If I had to do this glueup I would also use Epoxy,
1. for the open time and
2. for it being an outdoor project, the weather has no effect on the Epoxy at all.
I would break the glueup down into 3 phases:
1. The cross
2. The grid work
3. Glue the cross to the grids and attach the outer frame.
Also, I would assemble the whole gate (dry) when doing the sequential glueups to make sure everything fits together and stays square and flat, which would be my greatest worry. You don't need as much clamping pressure for Epoxy as you would for TB btw.

I agree with David's suggestion in regards to finishing, if you decide to do so, Sikkens Cetol 1... and WRC are a perfect combination.

[Mike Cutler]

Epoxy would be the better choice from the point that you are at. T-88 for the structural pieces
I think you might want to seriously consider David Helms advice and let that interior lattice work float. It doesn't look like you intended to do that, but is an excellent suggestion. His suggestion for pinning the structural joints would be my advice also.

Epoxy the four interior lattice sections as one stage, and set the dominos into the rails. Fit the lattice section into the set dominos, but don't epoxy either half of the joint. let the tenons free float. This will save you a lot of time and clean up. Those sections do not require gluing at the ends.
Set the whole thing up and use T-88 on the structural section and align the center. Square the corners at the same time. Come back in 24 hours and then you can safely move it. Full cure will be in a few days.

It's beautiful work. Well done.

[Wayne Lomman]

Tom, also remember you can glue up to a stage and then dry fit enough components to keep things aligned. This would work especially for the centre piece. Cheers

[Vince Shriver]

No advice, just another compliment on a beautifully crafted gate.

[Tom Hyde]

Wow. Excellent advice and tips all around. Can't thank everybody enough. (And just threw some more money at Sawmill Creek, having a place like this is invaluable!)

Definitely feel a lot more confident about pulling this off in stages, using the unglued sections as an alignment template. And yep, floating the center grids makes a lot of sense. Because of the small lateral slop in the domino mortises and the fact that the grids meet the center crosspieces on an angle, I might glue the center two dominos of each on both sides to keep the joint tight with no gap while also allowing expansion (if that makes sense). On the other hand, I might not have to. We'll see on dry fit.

While epoxy is probably the smartest move (or special order polyurethane based Structan), I don't have a lot of experience with epoxy and TBIII works really well on western red cedar (if it's furniture grade dry and you give it plenty of clamp time). Now that I can see how to do this in stages and still keep things aligned, I'll stick with TBIII for this one.

As far as finishing, I'm going to leave it natural and let it weather except for the very top (especially the end grain of the stiles) which I'll treat with WoodRx. I tested this on another gate, covering it completely, and it works incredibly well, likely better than anything else, even Sikkens products (incl. Cetol) which I have also used. BUT WoodRx leaves an orange color which I really hate.

And thanks for the compliments! A lot of firsts for me on this one. I'm really happy about being able to incorporate circles (and half circles) into my designs and pull it off with router templates to create perfectly matched pieces. This gate is for my own home and a design test of sorts. I've got six more to do around our place, each different, with plans to turn this into a small business. So every gate is a potential marketing piece, and definitely skill building.

Thanks again!

For reference and those interested, this is a gate I designed, built and treated with WoodRx:

353271

[Andrew Hughes]

That's is a nice looking gate,I'm also a gate building kung fu master and I don't like epoxy for cedar it's too hard and cedar is soft.
I use polyurethane gorilla glue.Its better than tb3 because it fills up spaces.Keeping water out of jointery is the key.Also pegs and thru tenons or draw board joints are good.Beacuse they put tension on joints the eventually will open up.
Good luck with your build great looking stuff.

[Tom Hyde]

Cheers Andrew, thanks!


That's is a nice looking gate,I'm also a gate building kung fu master and I don't like epoxy for cedar it's too hard and cedar is soft.
I use polyurethane gorilla glue.Its better than tb3 because it fills up spaces.Keeping water out of jointery is the key.Also pegs and thru tenons or draw board joints are good.Beacuse they put tension on joints the eventually will open up.
Good luck with your build great looking stuff.

[Chris Padilla]

I built a gate (yours is WAY nicer!) with cedar and used epoxy all the way through. It is SO NICE to have several hours of open time on the glue but it was weird as I'm not used to such time! You have PLENTY of time to adjust things and move things around and such. Plus, epoxy is generally bullet-proof as an adhesive. My gate is still swinging fine all these years later and the joints are solid. Good luck!