Garden Gate

06-03-2009

A customer located in North Carolina would like a garden gate to adorn her Pergola, which marks the beginning of a path leading to her house. It just so happens that this particular customer likes frogs, so I have created a few gate designs around a frog theme, while attempting to provide a range of styles from simple to a bit more creative and complex.

The first order of business, was to have my sketch enlarged on a large format printer. I also made certain that the sketch of the garden gate was to scale, so an actual working drawing could be created. The printer made two overlapping pieces of the image, so I had to align both pieces and then tape them together in order to end-up with the full-size sketch.

I began by carefully cutting out the image of the frog with a small utility knife in order to create a template. Once I had the template completed, I placed it upon a piece of plate steel and secured it with tape in order to hold it in place.

Next, I needed to trace the outter perimeter of the template onto the steel with a piece of soapstone. After I had the frog's shape traced onto the steel, I began to carefully cut the shape out with a plasma cutter. All that remained to complete the frog's shape, was to do some finish grinding with the hand-held grinder and a flap-disk to smooth and contour a bit.