Driveway gates - part 3 - The Stiles

The stiles were the first items to be batched out. They were milled to rough thickness and width and left a few days to acclimatise to the shops conditions. After a few days they hadn't moved much and were brought to final dimensions. This batch of iroko is very good.

The lower ends were squared off and all subsequent dimensions were made from this face. The important dimensions in this case are the start and end of each mortise. These are through mortises so are transferred to both sides.

Mortises cut into the stiles

Each mortise was cut with a 12mm (1/2") long series router bit. The length of the bit would not cut to the centre of each stile and is left about 1/8" of meat between the bottom of each mortise. This was simply drilled and chiselled out. The ends of each of the mortises needed to be squared off due to the design using wedged joints. I used a 1/2" mortise chisel to achieve this.

The 1/4" x 1/2" deep slot for the T&G boards was routed into the face of each stile using a variable kerf slot cutter on the router table.

The upper end of each of the stiles was left long and will be cut to length after final assembly.