What wood for a gate?

[PCPaul]

I've been tasked with making a garden gate for Xmas... a half-height one, along the lines of a picket fence with rounded tops.

The gate is between two hedges, so there's no existing fence or wood to match up to. What wood is best to use to make a fairly resilient gate without breaking the bank and without needing re-varnishing every couple of years?

Pine isn't too sturdy unless you keep redoing it. Pressure treated pine is better but it's going to be machined, exposed wood so the colours will be all over the place.

So what's left? Ash? Oak (green or dried)? Poplar? anything else?

[BigWallop]

Old wooden pallet base runners. The timber is strong enough to dress and machine. It lasts for ages without much maintenance. It's cheap. Have a look around your local DIY store or timber merchant for old broken pallets.

That's what our little garden divider fences are made from. :-)

[PCPaul]

I thought pallets were mostly spruce these days?

[Steven Campbell]

I made a full length 30ft x 4ft high garden fence with old pallets around 20 years ago and it looks still as solid as the day it was made. Not sure what pallets are made with but its strong stuff.

[BigWallop]

I know our little fences have been there for years and years. Only painted them a couple of times in that period, when they looked scruffy enough to need a lick of paint. They are still strong and firm enough in the ground to last the same length of time again, by the look of them.

I don't know what wood they are, but they all seem to match in colour and grain strength. Cost the price of the diesel to bring them home. You do have to ask for the broken pallets though, as new ones will most likely be sent back to the supplier to be re-stocked. Broken ones get chucked away in most places. You might also find them in skips at the side of the road, which are the cheapest to obtain, and you don't have to ask if you leave it till late enough at night.

[Dave Liquorice]

Make the gate first then get it treated.

That's how our gates where made and TBH finding a place than can make and treat 'em is probably the better option. Unless you have the abilty to make really tight joints and have clamps big enough to push them together.

[PCPaul]

I can make them OK - I have several sash cramps (you can never have too many), a choice of routers and a crappy table saw. But getting it pressure treated afterwards is a thought - I hadn't realised there were places that would do more than dunk it in a tank of miscellaneous 'preservative'.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Oak really. If you want it to go white and pitted and not treat it,

Otherwise pressure treated.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Not natural stone for India fer sure!

Poplar is quite useable in the UK.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Never glue a gate together. Bolt it. The wood expands mightily in the wet. Breaks any glue joint known to man..

[cynic]

I found it simpler to buy one ready made and primed at our local car boot - fifteen quid, only needed posts, hinges and a sneck then a coat of paint

[The Medway Handyman]

Highjacking your thread slightly, how far does pressure treatment go into the timber? I use the end grain sealer on cut ends and it seems to work well, but how about if you rip a length of PTT in half?

[Dave Liquorice]

Proper "pressure" treatment should pretty much fully penetrate the timber even big stuff with >12" dimensions. It's done first by putting the timber under vacuum to draw the moisture/air out, introducing the preservative and then air pressure does the rest.

Now wether the "treated" stuff you get in a builders merchant is really "pressure" treated or just sat for 24 hrs in a tank is another matter...

[robgraham]

I had access to some elm some years ago and made a gate out of that. Used it on the basis that it is a heavily cross linked timber and therefore tough (chair seats, etc). Lasted about 10 years and one of the cross supports just broke through.

Rob

[The Natural Philosopher]

Pressure treated at best goes a few mm into the wood.

Leatsways thats what I have pvserved on all the stuff I've sawn.

[Andy Dingley]

Sweet chestnut, which you won't find (easily) away from the south coast.

Second choice is larch, but pick your timbers. It's cheap and its resinous enough to resist rot well. You want a good straight bit (larch can be a nuisance for twist when drying) and you want a resiny bit, not one with a surface that feels too "dry" or "whiskery".

Then repaint it every few years. You're only talking every couple of years, it's worth this much.

[Andy Dingley]

Strong cross-grain (because of the interlocking wiggliness), but bad for rot. Good for making coffin bases out of, as it rots through quickly and lets the body decompose, thus freeing up churchyard space more quickly. This is also why there's little elm furniture surviving.

Only gates I'd make out of elm would be canal lock gates. When kept permanently wet, it lasts well.

[Rod]

I made our full height gate out of some "machine rail" (had to look that name up - half-round timbers, approx. 100mm diameter), and some 100x25 treated softwood. Been there for around 5 or six years with no obvious deterioration. Just a quick slosh of fence paint to keep it looking good. (The strap hinges have taken more of a hit - with distinct rusting despite purportedly being galvanised.) I anticipate at least another 10 years out of it.

Construction was, umm, basic. Three pieces of half-round - in a Z pattern. Screwed palings to the flat side of the half-rounds with gap of around 25mm between each paling. Hinges screwed to flats I made on the half-rounds. Cut top of gate to a nice curve and bottom parallel to the ground *after* initial trial attachment to post. Has worked just fine.

One point - I did use stainless screws throughout.

[unopened]

Which is why bored out elm logs were used as water pipes.

Regards,

Sid

[Bob Mannix]

I'm impressed! - do you make many canal lock gates? Come to think of it who does make them?