Dowels put to work

   The face frame gateway is sitting at the bottom of our basement stairs.  This gate is designed to keep Kieran downstairs when he really wants to come up stairs and hang out with us. If you are a parent/grandparent you know the routine at nap time.  They fuss and cuss and as soon as you leave the room they fall asleep.  The gateway is there to keep him from climbing the stairs and not being about to open the door at the top.  We are concerned that he would then start to push and pull at the door and maybe....bump...bump....bump and then everyone would feel bad.


  I used the JessEm dowel jig to make the face frame.  Ordinarily I would have used Pocket Holes but in this case the project did not have a hidden side so the holes would have needed plugs.  It was one of those few occasions that dowels or mortise and tenon were just the thing.  


  The JessEm jig worked perfectly.  All the holes were in exact alignment and and the was easy to set up.  I have gone on record as saying dowels are mostly about alignment, in this case that is especially true.  The gateway is longer then my longest Bessey Clamps and so I had to improvise a clamping station on my work table.  Since the dowels kept things lined up all I had to do was clamp one side to the table and push the other side in tight before clamping it to the table as well.  The adhesive quality of modern glues means that all it needed was a firm hand and 24 hours to cure, I'm sure the glue joint is as strong as the wood.


   The frame is elm, because I have a bunch of it laying around and finished with orange shellac.  I have found that the orange shellac goes very nicely with the natural colour of the elm.  


   The white section of the gateway is door skin.  It paints easily and weights nothing.  This way the gate serves its purpose and is easy to lift in and out of place with one hand.  It remains to be seem how long it fools the little guy because it is light enough that he could move it if he wanted to.


   FootNote:  The date time stamp is not right.  I don't know why that is on the photos and clearly it has not been updated since the batteries went in.