I have a garden entrance gate that has rotted and I am planning to replace it.
Because it matches my neighbour's gate I want to make one that looks the same rather than buy a ready-made gate. Also, making a gate should be fun. I've not done much woodwork before so I'm pretty much a novice.
The original gate has a full frame with two stiles and three rails. It has no diagonal bracing in the frame but is faced with diagonally laid tongue & groove cladding. I guess the cladding provides sufficient bracing to resist sagging.
I can't work out how the rails were joined to the stiles, there are three plugged holes on the stile opposite the rail, so I guess there may be dowels or maybe large screws.
Anyway, I used some small scrap timber to make some test joints to see if it would be feasible for me to make a mortice & tenon joint or a lap-joint using hand tools. This was a lot of work and I'm inclined to use a lap-joint. It will mostly be hidden behind the cladding so visually it will look the same as the old gate to most people.
The lap-joint relies on glue, should I insert some screws to make the joint stronger or would that just create a pathway for water into the wood & joint?