Oak Gate Repair

[deema]

I seem to spend my time repairing stuff these days rather than making new. I have three oak gates to repair / rebuild. I’m fairly certain there will be more work and effort in repairing them than there would be to just make them new. I won’t bore you with the reasons why it’s a repair, but that’s the rabbit hole I’m going down.

The glue has failed and the gates have dropped, added to which the panels have rotted and need replacing. The top rail, which was made from two pieces of oak laminated together has come apart.

 

[HOJ]

I'm in.

 

[deema]

The gates are ‘properly’ made with draw mortice and tenons that are wedged. Taking the gate apart wasn’t straight forward. The wedges needed to be chopped out first, which released the tenons. Luckily the glue had completely given way.

The top rail was ‘prized’ apart, it had plywood slip tenons which had disintegrated and soaked moisture into the joint. The Cascamite glue, which is what had been used had completely failed which I was surprised about. The panels had equally had plywood loose tenons and these are what had caused the panels to fall apart and also rot where the plywood was.

This is the top rail, you can see the two rows of loose tenons, or what is left if them. The rail is 3” or 75mm thick

The panels rotted at the loose tenons. The first image shows the damage to another gate I also took apart. The second image shows the remains of the plywood.

 

[deema]

First off; well after cleaning all the left over glue was removed and the parts allowed to dry out for a few days, the top rail was tackled first.

The loose tenons were chiseler out, and the remaining glue in the slots removed. The two meeting surfaces of the top rail parts had, over time moved and no longer would meet flush. The two parts meeting surfaces were planed flat and true again. A bit tricky, as the uppermost part is very thin at the centre making it very flexible.

The side walls adjacent to the loose tenons in the centre of the rail had started to rot. So, I cut the rotten bits out and added new pieces.

Angled cuts at either end for the new piece to be spliced into, and then cuts along the length allowed the rotten bits to be chiselled out.

One side removed, the other ready to be chiselled.

I put the two pieces back together to see how it will look, this is before I made the replacement splice.

 

[deema]

Two new pieces of oak were spliced in and glued in place with 5 min PU glue. I had made new loose tenons, this time out of oak. I used the loose tenons wrapped in tape to act as a backstop for the spliced in pieces.

With the clamps off and starting to clean them up with a plane, I generally leave a couple of mm proud to enable me to plane it back smooth.

All cleaned up and ready for the loose tenons.

 

[deema]

With new oak slip tenons, the two parts were glued together with 30 min PU glue. A few clamps were used!

So that’s were I called it a day.

 

[rogxwhit]

A couple of observations. For work that lives out in the weather like this, rather than something semi-protected like external joinery, I wouldn't rely on glue at all, but just a sound mechanical structure. The trouble with Cascamite (et al) is that it has a brittle set that can't be in accord with the wood movement over wetting / drying cycles that is bound to occur.

PU isn't foolproof either. Did you wet the meeting faces at all before gluing. It needs moisture to cure.

And it's hard to avoid moisture traps in outdoor joinery, but it's something to give some heed to.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

The only problem I've found over the years with cascamite ...... other brands of UF are available ...... is the brittleness in small, stressed joints such a chairs when in year round central heating. It shatters. I doubt it would ever get that dry in larger external joinery.

 

[deema]

A bit more progress today…..
The top rail came out of its clamps, and cleaned back up. Im very happy with how the joint turned out, considering everything.

The gate parts have been roughly sanded up, it’s never going to look new, and equally initially it will look a little odd until its all weathered in. It’s highly likely that OSMO light oak will be applied as a finish, which will look blotchy on this old wood after it has been sanded. However, after a few months it will start to settle down and have a uniform colour.

I’ve just about tweaked all of the joints, with the glue having let go, there was some twist and irregularities, it will never look like a brand new gate for joint quality, but when clamped up it should pull together sufficiently to look a lot better than it did. It’s just dry assembled.

The rails between the top and middle rail will I think need some attention. I think I need to make at least two new ones, as they originally they didn’t fully span the gap without the tenons showing. I will probably as shown move them all one step towards the centre and make new ones for the outside.

The eagle eyed may have spotted that one of the styles has a lump of wood missing from the bottom corner. This was held in place by one of the strap hinge bolts. I will be splicing a new section to make it good again.

I will be making new panels for the gate, the old ones will help keep me warm this winter!

 

[deema]

Only spent a short time playing with the gate today. Time to resolve the broken piece of the style where the mortice is. First off, cut at least the width of the mortice pocket further up into the good, I need a good glue area that’s at least the same area as the tenon, and preferably a bit larger. This is old oak, so the good stuff is really hard. A good sharp saw with all faces angled to shed water.

Next make a new piece to match the angles. I leave them a little larger on all sides to plane it to size once the glue has gone off. I’ve used 5 min waterproof PU.

There isn’t a straight surface or a right angle in anything, the wood has moved over time making marking out challenging.

 

[johnnyb]

bizarrely I did a very similar job at the start of summer. it was pretty well made but from laminated stiles also a cut and shut curved top rail. both of which were delamination badly.

 

[deema]

@johnnyb nice work, look great. Hope these turn out as well as yours.

 

[deema]

Clamps off quick plane up and the style doesn’t look to bad.

Added the detail on the edge to match the existing and it’s ready to go.

 

[deema]

Spindles fitted with a couple of new ones made. I had to refit them all, as they were now too short following the arch repair. They are just a dry fit at this stage.

 

[deema]

The fielded panels were toast, so new ones were made.
First off, cut down the 40mm thick oak plank into something a little more manageable. A new toy got it’s first taste of wood. I have to say I was extremely impressed with how it coped, especially as it was the blade that came with it, not a blade for doing this job. I am a real convert to the Mafell tracksaw. I’ve used @Sideways Festool, and IMO this is a better machine.

Once they were cut to rough size, they were final dimensioned on the panel saw and then run over and under the planner thicknesser. They are 13 1/4” wide out of solid.

The fielding was applied and then the whole gate dry assembled.

I cut wedges on the bandsaw using a quick jig. I find this to be both the quickest, safest and easiest way of doing it.