WOOD GARDEN GATES #87

This Garden Gate is Base Price + 27% to 44%
Go to Base Price Table

Florence, Alabama

Wood garden gate with solid grids of smooth-sanded panels. Each of the individual insert panels in this wooden gate float within the framework of the gate. There is no shortcut; every divider is grooved and flush-joined. Grid dividers at 5-1/4″ width. Two columns and three rows.

Florence, Alabama

As a note, older existing brick columns are seldom plumb. In viewing the photos sent in, we see that in fine-tuning the fit to listing columns, the installer has neglected to leave the required 1/2″ gap in the center. The gap is important, as it allows the wooden gate to swell in the wetter season. Without it and the gates will surely swell to where they won’t close properly, which means the latch doesn’t engage, which means the gates will swing freely in the wind, which means they’ll also slam closed. Again and again and again until someone eventually rectifies the error and hopefully the gates have experienced no real damage.
We’ve contacted the installers and hopefully they’ll make that revision.

Florence, Alabama

The side entry of the single wood privacy fence gate 87-3

Florence, Alabama

If you are browsing from west of the Rockies, like Ben and Charles, it’s a pleasure to see the house that hosts a gate in Alabama. Conversely, if you’re on the east half of the country, it’s nice to see not just a photo of the gates, but the homes and their landscapes situated in the west. Remember when sending us your photos to include one that shows us how the garden gate appears with the architecture and landscape. It makes for good armchair browsing, for passing an entire Sunday. Losing yourself in the world of prowell woodworks.

Abeline, Texas
Two columns of insets
Grids of 14-¼”
Gate: 42″W x 67″ht

Set to an aged-brick wall. Finished on site with Benjamin Moore ‘Arbor Coat translucent’

Rocky Mountain latch E414 and dead bolt DB507

San Rafael, CA
Three columns of insets
Grids of 6″-8″ +_

The original wood garden gates style #87 with solid grid panels.
Priced considerably higher simply because the option of more than two columns of panel inserts are far more laborious.

Showing the property side, with each grid featuring four stops.

Below showing a close-up of the feature side, facing the street and without the framework of stops that are shown above.

San Rafael, CA

Our wood garden gates style #87 was originally created as an accompaniment to an existing grid-style fence. Shown with an early Prowell Garden Arbor. Eventually the gate will weather the same silvery gray as the older fence.

Grids at 8.16″ square. Six grids across.
Wood garden gates style #87-1. Gate at 72″ net width.
WoodRX Mahogany

Showing the side of the gate facing the street. The truth is we’re not crazy about wooden gate #87 at this width. It’s by far the heaviest gate we offer, and subsequently requires a steel frame for any widths beyond 60″.

Pasadena, CA

From time to time our request for photos of the fully installed garden gates and fences falls on deaf ears.  Below we’ve resorted using Google Street View.   

Pasadena, CA

On a wood gate beyond 48″ width, the stile and rail thickness increases to 2-1/4″, with the horizontal / vertical grid dividers at 1-1/2″ thickness. Also showing the Prowell ‘s ‘Exterior Woodworking Joint #9 ‘

Pasadena, CA

For the heavier wood garden fences and gates, the same joint at the top and bottom rails.

Mission Viejo, CA
Two columns of insets

Photographed a year after installation. Wooden gate 87-3 gradually weathering to a silvery grey

Latch: Rocky Mountain E504.
Dead Bolt 507

Two columns of insets

Double wood garden gates #87-2. Each gate at approximately 43″ width x 80″ ht. Grids at 12.59′ square.
At 80″ height, the gate thickness defaults to 2-1/4″.
The wider grid dividers at the same 5-1/4″ width as the top rail and side stiles.
*When there are only two grids across a single or double fence gate, the process is simplified, and priced at the lesser +27%.
Because there are only two columns of grids, the insert panels are fitted in place during the assembly, requiring no wood stops as with the above examples of 87 and 87-1.

Here the homeowner has requested the insert panel’s grain direction is oriented horizontally.

IN-PROGRESS
So how do I build a wood gate anyway?

Ben creating the end-cut joints for a typical Driveway Gate style #7, as the matching style for the #87.

Dry-fitting the cross-member grids. A rather complicated process, showing the property side of the wooden gate prior to fitting the continuous ‘stops’.

Creating the half-laps the wooden fence gate 87 on the sliding cross-cut table.

Each panel grid has a drainage hole, as well as troughs to collect the moisture of heavy rains while migrating to the drainage. Each grid divider is joined to the stiles and rails of the gate frame with full mortise and tenon joinery.

The top and bottom rail assembled prior to the two vertical stiles. The four outer panel insets are set to place, with all the remaining panels placed after the stiles have been clamped in place. Wooden fence gate #87 is one of the more time-consuming gates to build.

The top rail fitted and joined to the grid. Showing the stub of the full thru-tenon prior to being joined to the vertical stile. The kerfs in the tenon are to accept the eventual wedges, which will widen the tenon to an even tighter fit. Outdoor gates and fences with grids enjoy the added structural integrity multiple grid dividers joined to the stiles and rails. In effect, a torsion box.

Charles fitting the wedges to the full through tenon, employed on all the larger wooden fence gate #87.
See Prowell Joint #9

Ben preparing for the assembly of the wooden gate 87-2.

The endless solid insert panels, each of them sealed with a lifetime emulsified liquid wax to prevent the potential of checking/bowing/warping.

The final step of Prowell’s Joint #9 features a pair of oak dowels bored in from the top, down through the tenons as a final layer of insurance. Also showing the property side where the insert panels are ‘stopped’. Each piece is glued and clamped in place.

*
And who among you really cares? Who really gives a hoot?
Well, obviously Charles and Ben do.
In the new era of the past 10 years, there exist more knock-offs of our products scattered across the country than originals.
So for those who prefer such an approach, we want to impress upon you the level of attention that is given to both the original design and construction of our products while presenting your more affordable hired gun with a level of ammunition he/she may, or may not, possess. May, or may not, be willing, or capable, of replicating. And yet if a 3rd party is hired to build your gate, they may conceivably benefit from the progress steps shown here.

All of gates and fence, regardless of style, size, or weight, must submit to a series of checkpoint tests. Checkpoint #1: This very first checkpoint was carried out on California’s Yuba River, with Ben and Charles preparing to board the original wooden gate #87.

Gate Checkpoints