Small Fence, Big Difference (Part 2)

Continuing the fun of building a fence or series of gates, to keep Tuukka (the dog) from escaping from the yard. This stretch is literally less than 8 meters wide, but with only 2 peoples doing the work and trying to do the whole thing with salvaged wood extends the timeline significantly.

Where Were We

gate frames hung

In the first post, I described the fun of freeing planks from salvaged sections of fencing. A few weeks of occasional or infrequent labor resulted in a large pile of pickets, a small stack of 2x4's and a small stack of 4x4's. The best 4x4's became the fence posts. The best 2x4's will become the runners and gate main support sections and, of course, the pickets will become the pickets. The fence we salvaged had pickets that varied in width, but they were around 5 or 5-1/2 inches wide. That fence was a 6 foot fence and we are planning on a fence that is around 4 feet tall. I say "around" because the ground is not perfectly level. We installed 3 posts: one nearest the house, one about a meter away from that post and a third another meter away. Our plan is to have a "people gate" between the second set of posts and a "vehicle gate" between that third post and the neighbor's fence. So, the 4-foot fence will be 4 feet high at that third post. The ground drops a little bit toward the neighbor and rises a little bit towards our house. So, the top of the fence will be level, but the bottom will not be.

More Material Prep

prep area

Boo and I were having a hard time visualizing the fence enough to make seemingly easy decisions, like "will the fence have teeth and if so, how long?". By "teeth" ,I mean some length of picket above the top runner. Some fences stop clean with a runner along the top, and some don't. Without that clearly known, we could not plan for the gate construction because the location of the upper runner was unknown. So, we return to materials prep. This time, we selected 30 pickets, and ripped them down with a table saw to 3-1/2 inches wide. Then, we cleaned them up with a belt sander to get the grot off, and expose the wood. We laid 2x4's down to simulate the ground, bottom and top runners and then laid some of the cleaned up pickets on top... all on the grass... so we could imagine different configurations. We resolved to even spacing of 3-1/2" between each picket and  3-1/2" teeth with the bottom runner aligning with the bottom runner of the neighbor's fence.

Measure, Cut and Assemble Gate Frames

considering gate visual

At this point, we did some measuring, and ran some math for how large the rectangular gate frames needed to be. In retrospect, there was a flaw in my logic here, so the fence will either be a couple of inches short or the teeth will need to be a couple of inches longer. Why? Well, we considered where the top runner was based on the measurement at the neighbor's fence measuring up from that bottom runner rather than triangulate off of the middle post. So, while we had everything else assumed right, the gate frames are actually 2.5 inches too short, resulting in a fence that will be 45.5" tall at the third post rather than 48" tall there. Will it matter? No, not really. The dog will not jump a 45.5" fence any more often than the 48" fence. Honestly, reaching over a 45.5" gate to unlatch it might be easier and while having it 48" high at the at post would have been great, at the neighbor's fence it would have been over 50" high. Anyway, with an angle square, a measuring tape and a circular saw, I prepared 3 gates' worth of 2x4's. Then, with a cordless driver, I drilled and set up the angle-irons I had purchased (Azn link). These angle-irons were the only new bits for this fence, by the way. Constructing the frames took a few hours.

Hang Gate Frames

cleaned pickets

Next, I shifted to hanging the gate frames onto the posts. I started by attaching the hinges to the frames, making sure I had the right end of the gate, and had the hinge swinging the correct way. Once all 3 were equipped, I took them, one at a time, over to their respective post for install. I started at the neighbor's fence end, so I could get the bottom runner height correct. I put my racing car jack under the frame and lifted it up, against the neighbor's fence, until the top of my bottom runner was aligned with the top of the neighbor's fence's lower runner. This would have the best visual appeal. Since we want the pickets to align with the post faces (not behind or jutting out in front), I accounted for the width of the picket to set the hinge spot on the post. Before I went any further, I made a couple of templates: one for the hinge screw pattern, from the leading edge of the steel plate and a second for the space from the leading edge of the hinge to the leading edge of the post. This way, all 6 hinges would install in the exact same relative spots.

With the templates formed and the location of the first pair of hinges defined, I drilled the holes and sent the screws through. We had one gate frame hung. I needed Boo's help to steady the other 2 gates, but the process was very similar. We would set the gate onto a jack (or 2x4) to set the height. To get the height correct, we aligned the top of the top runner against the adjacent gate. Once the gate height was set, we marked the top of the hinges with a scrape of a screw. From that scrape-mark we would use the templates to define where the holes were to be drilled. We'd drill the holes, and send the screws through the hinges into the posts.

hinge close-up

In a weekend, we went from a pile of 5" unfinished grotty pickets to 3 gate frames hung and a pile of pickets nearly ready for install. Next is the addition of the short section of not-gate runners between the first 2 posts. The pickets require a little more prep (cutting the rot off one end), but then we will be attaching the pickets, fresh-cut side down. Once attached, there will be some trimming off the top to get to nice straight teeth. We have not decided if we are going to paint the fence or not. So, we are going to clear-coat it after the fence is built. Then, we'll finish the job by add latching hardware. I'm getting quite a bit ahead of myself, and I'll post on all that next time.

Thanks, as always, for following along-