To start things off I am going to rework the gate for my back fence. I built the fence a few years back and it has served its purpose well, but there are a few niggles that need attention, one of which is the gate.
The gate is heavy, slams hard and sags. My previous post segues nicely here. I need to simplify, and add lightness. Luckily in this case, simplification will add lightness.
The orientation of the cross brace meant I had to split the slats to mount them within the body of the gate. Because of this I also had to incorporate additional mounting points for the slats by way of additional 2x2's. A complicated design. There is a simpler way. By rotating the cross brace 90 degrees, full length slats can run the height of the gate without having to be split. With this change I can delete the additional 2x2 slat mounts, and the cross brace itself can act as an additional mounting point for the slats. The new orientation of the cross brace should also be stiffer because of the length wise vertical orientation. The full length slats should also visually simplify the gate.
The sagging of the gate is certainly a symptom its weight, but another contributing factor is that I mounted the cross brace incorrectly. I mounted it so that it extends down from the top on the hinge side, to the bottom on the latch side. This places the brace under tension, while wood is strongest under compression. If I had used a wire turnbuckle brace the existing orientation would have been correct. So the simple solution is to flip the orientation of the cross brace to place the wooden brace under a compression load.
I could use a wire turnbuckle brace to shave additional weight, but I intend to re-use as much of the original material as possible and minimize the need to to purchase new materials. If I were to start from scratch perhaps I would go that route, but I also believe the wooden brace will look nicer in this application.
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