Bespoke wooden Victorian gates
As well as our range of standard designs of wooden gates which we make to measure, we also manufacture bespoke gates, i.e. gates made to your own designs. Usually, these are based on sketches or pictures that are sent in to us.These can be to suit existing gates our customers already have when they want something that matches, or they’ve seen something they like elsewhere and would like something similar, or for people in period properties that want something sympathetic to the style of house they live in. Here we look at some wooden Victorian gates we recently manufactured.
Victorian style wooden gates
In this blog post, we’ll have a look at a pair of gates we recently manufactured for one of our customers in Powys. These gates were based on another pair we made quite a few years ago (the pair they were based on can be found on our bespoke wooden gates page on our website (they are also below) and are the white Victorian style gates (the picture isn’t very good as it was before the advent of digital cameras!).
As I mentioned, usually any bespoke gates we manufacture are based on sketches or pictures we receive; this time we already had the picture, as we had already made the gate pictured ourselves; as well as this, we also received a sketch (below left) from our customer with (a little bit of detail!) of heights of rails and widths required on. The more detail we get the better, both for pricing the job as it makes the costing more accurate, and then manufacturing the gate more striaght-forward if the customer decides to go ahead.
It’s quite an intricate gate to make with the turned pieces in the top section and the cut out panels in the lower section, but as with anything, the first thing to do is to make the outer framework of the gates, as this then gives you all the relevent sizes for the infills in the top and lower sections of the gates.
Above shows the gate framed up dry, not as yet glued; by this stage the timber is all smooth planed and jointed (our favorite through wedged morticed and tenon joints – don’t settle for anything less!); from this we get the sizes of the turned pieces in the top section and the panel sizes in th lower section, along with the infill uprights in the middle section. Below, shows the top rail capping prior to being jointed; this can be made from one piece of timber but would be weak due to short grain, so it’s best to manufacture it from two pieces of timber and join them together.
Above right, shows the top rail capping jointed up and in place, but loose, on the top rail, with the gate all framed up dry (no glue), we can begin making the infill pieces for the various sections of the gates.
See how the gates turned out in part two of our Victorian gates blog post with video.
