| Project by Kevin_S | posted 161 days ago | 672 views | 3 times favorited | 7 comments |  |
 |
Here is a pet gate I made a year or so ago. Got tired of the store bought gates and figured I could do better.
The wood is poplar, painted to match the trim. The main frame is doweled and the “bars” are dovetailed into the frame which you should be able to see in the second picture. I wanted nice sturdy joints that wouldn’t loosen up over time. It’s about 38” wide by 31” high, by 1 1/8” thick. The square opening is big enough for the cats, but too small for the dogs. That is one design feature I borrowed from the commercial gates.
The gate is held closed with magnets set into the frame that match up with magnets set into the wall mounted stop, but it’s easy to push open with a foot if your arms are full. If needed, I could add a latch that would stop any of the dogs from opening the gate, but they seem to accept the gate as a barrier and don’t mess with it.
I originally tried using double acting hinges that would let the gate open both ways, but the only ones I found weren’t sturdy enough and the gate sagged uselessly. So I went with plan B and used a couple standard hinges I already had on hand.
There is one accidental design feature in the gate and that is the small step routed into the inside edges. I meant to just round over all the edges, but didn’t notice that I had the small bearing on the roundover bit. After my first cut I saw my mistake (and followed that with much cussing). The gate was already assembled, so I couldn’t just replace the “ruined” piece. I went ahead and routed the rest of the edges and ended up liking that detail better than if I had just done a simple roundover.
| Pin It |
7 comments so far
Bagtown
home | projects | blog
1636 posts in 1898 days
#1 posted 161 days ago
I like the cat feature.
Nice job.
-- http://www.heartofsackville.ca/
matts_dad
home | projects | blog
21 posts in 828 days
#2 posted 161 days ago
Well done, sturdy and attractive to boot!
A couple of years ago I made a gate, but I was not at all pleased with how sturdy the whole thing was. I would be interested in see a picture in enough detail to see the dovetail joints at the ends of the bars. It might motivate me to rebuild mine. – thanks for showing your work.
-- Barry
a1Jim
home | projects | blog
87122 posts in 1745 days
#3 posted 161 days ago
Good thinking well done
-- W James Brokenbourgh Custom furniture maker http://artisticwoodstudio.com/
redsox9
home | projects | blog
75 posts in 455 days
#4 posted 161 days ago
Clever to add the opening for the cats, though our feline household members would just simply jump over the gate as they did when the kids were small. Nice work! Thanks for sharing.
-- Jeff, North Andover, MA
HorizontalMike
home | projects | blog
4930 posts in 1082 days
#5 posted 161 days ago
Wow! What amazing joinery and router work!
-- HorizontalMike -- "Woodpeckers understand..."
Kevin_S
home | projects | blog
27 posts in 1357 days
#6 posted 156 days ago
matts_dad, I wish I had taken more pictures during construction. Now that the gate is painted the dovetail details are obscured. So instead, I added another image. This one is a quick sketch of the frame and bar joint. I cut the dovetailed slots in the frame first on the router table. I cut both top and bottom frame at the same time so the slots would align. Then I cut the ends of the bars. I made a jig to hold the bars upright and slide along the router table fence. I snuck up on the right setup by shaving a little bit at a time from each side. Once I got a good fit, I ran all the bars through.
matts_dad
home | projects | blog
21 posts in 828 days
#7 posted 100 days ago
Kevin_S
The diagram made things clear. Now I understand why your gate is sturdier than mine. If you look at my “Flowered Coffee Table” project you can catch my gate in the background. It was difficult to get a whole bunch of tiny mortise & tenon joints to fit together without over sanding them.
So, it is with much respect that I suspect that what you have built is easier said than done.
Thanks for the detail.
-- Barry
Have your say...