Unfortunately didn’t take many during photos because I was working against the weather most of the time, so every minute was precious!

For the arches I glue-lammed rough 2″ x 6″ vg cedar that I had S2S’d. Then made a trammel for my router and cut the appropriate templates. Because I don’t have a bandsaw or shaper, I took the glued up arches down to my favorite millwork shop and had them rough cut and finish cut the arches for me.

I stacked the 2″ x 6″ s rather than mitering them together at the peak so that the whole arched assembly could move as it expands and contracts. While it’s possible and likely that the joints will telegraph through over time, having the vg grain of the cedar totally aligned seemed like it would give the most chance for the pieces to want to move all together. What I did not want was a miter ever opening up right at the middle of the arch. I told the clients that I’ll want to come back in the spring and maybe give it a sand down and another coat of paint if the joints are too visible after the winter (and then we’ll see after the summer as well)

I also searched out the driest cedar stock I could find, which was from the same millwork shop. Rough sawn cedar stock that was between 6% – 8% mc when milled down.

The arches are attached to the posts with loose mortise and tenons (Domino), glue, finish nails, and SS screws. The grain is oriented the same way on the posts so that the arches and posts will expand and contract the same way as much as possible.

I used solid 6″ x 6″ vg cedar for the posts as well. Again very dry stock so that it wouldn’t check over time. I had built an arbor for the next door neighbors a few monhts back using all VG cedar as they had some other guys build them a bigger arbor out back but they had used face grain (flatsawn) fir and it started checking and cracking right away. (talking to the guy who built it he said “but they told me it was 20% mc or less!)

It was many hundreds of dollars for all the vg cedar alone, but I wanted to make sure that this would look good for a long time. It doesn’t look as bad when the wood checks and cracks if it’s clear finished, but when it’s painted you notice it all right away.

For the gate, I did miter 2 pieces of 2″ x 12″ vg cedar together, joined with loose tenons and glue. There’s just a little bit of give between the slats and the arch of the gate so hopefully as that arch wants to move, the slats won’t hold it in place and help the miter open up.

The one thing I didn’t do was bevel the top of the trim where the arches meet the straight posts. This is going to collect water and eventually break through the paint and swell that trim. I probably will want to go back and do so, but I was more intent on exactly matching the existing trim as I was building it. Form over function…I’m shaking my head at myself.

I couldn’t find any stock moldings for the small bead trim and the cove mould of the upper trim. I ripped down some window bead and some flat stock to make the secondary trim piece, and ripped down some bed mould that contained the right profile for the cove section.All the trim is fir except for that one section of cove mould which is hemlock. Fortunately it’s caulked and painted in under that flat stock, so hopefully it won’t collect water behind it and start rotting anytime soon.

Some day I’ll figure out how to embed the photos on a Mac, but for now I can’t so here you go.

Paul