Once I finished making the side supports of the wooden fence, I could join them at the bottom with a wooden beam and cut all the boards that close the gap between the posts. Although, since this is a detachable fence with adjustable board height, the process of making it and the video took a bit longer.
The initial plan was to join them at the bottom with a 9×4.5cm slat placed edgewise, using dowels and an insert nut where a bolt would screw in, but the surprise was that since it was softwood, tightening the bolt would drag the insert nut, even pulling it out of the slat and embedding it into the side support. Luckily, I noticed in time, filled all the holes with glued wooden dowels, and changed the system.
I decided to place the slat horizontally (as in the original fence design shown to me), so I cut a dado groove along the length with the table saw to insert the edge of one of the boards, thus forming an inverted T-beam (another inverted T).
Then I could join each end of this T to each side support with three 8mm bolts, two entering the slat at an angle and one entering at 90º in the center of the board. For this, I drilled holes with a 7mm bit, continuing the corresponding holes in the side supports.
Actually, I first drilled the holes on the outer side of the fence supports with the supports resting against the beam to mark the position of the holes on the beam. I drilled the two holes at the height of the slat inclined inward, and the one for the board at 90º to the wood surface.
I widened these holes in the fence side supports with an 8mm bit so the bolts would fit tightly without needing to be screwed in. This ensures that tightening the bolts pulls the T-beam towards the support. But before drilling these holes, I made an inclined recess with a 30mm Forstner bit to properly seat the washers of the inclined bolts. Additionally, I cut the tongue-and-groove board that goes on top of the T-beam to the exact length and drilled the holes to secure it with a bolt at each end.
The next boards I cut about 5mm shorter so they would fit easily into the groove I made in each side support. I made these grooves by gluing and screwing a couple of parallel slats on each side support, leaving enough space for the boards to slide smoothly once given two coats of protective stain. As I mention in the video, the groove turned out a bit narrow and the boards were cut just a couple of millimeters shorter than the T-beam, so once the stain dried, I had to fix these two issues.
To finish the wooden fence, I routed a decorative chamfer on the wooden posts, sealed the grooves and imperfections with wood filler, sanded with an orbital sander using medium-grit sandpaper, touching up hard-to-reach areas by hand, and finished sanding with a fine-grit sanding sponge. Finally, I applied a couple of coats of exterior protective stain to protect the wood…
and I could assemble the height-adjustable fence for the dog’s jumps.
How to make a height-adjustable wooden fence:
Odd way to make 30 and 60 degree cuts in wood
I make the lateral supports for the wooden fence
