second gate

Success proves elusive on the second gate. Right now it is functional; the gate opens and closes and latches. To clear the slope, I decided to leave a huge gap at the bottom of the gate. The gap is conveniently the rot board. I made the rot board removeable. Screw eyes on the posts support square bend hooks on the rot board. The gate has to be opened wide to allow the board to be lifted off the hooks on the hinge side.



Right now the gate is out of plane with the latch post. The gate sticks out at the top and sticks in at the bottom. I'm guessing that if I loosen the frame screws and reshape the frame, I might can get the gate to line up better. It's just a guess. I may have to loosen the screws on the pickets too. Maybe some weekend when I have the time, I will experiment. There is still some staining left to do. I'm also not too happy with the uneven gap at the bottom of the gate, but oh well. Other things require my attention.

Since this is a secondary gate, I made no provisions to be able to open it from the outside. This time I did not make the hinges plumb but opted to allow them to follow the post. By luck, the weight of the gate swings it open on its own when unlatched. This is a good thing, reducing the likelihood that the gate would accidentally swing closed when in use and thereby locking you out. I used three butt hinges (like you see on your doors in the house) instead of gate T-hinges so that they wouldn't be as obvious. They squeak a little, telling me that they aren't lined up perfectly. But it's probably okay; I can open and close the gate with little effort.

(square bend hook)
(screw eye)