Building low walls around a smithy

[TMIB]

I think that would be an excellent second project! All of our axe yards follow scout guidelines/regulations, and are roped or otherwise barricaded off. (most of the time the scouts make lashed rope & post fences, as it's a great exercise for them to refresh their knot and lashing skills)

In fact, a good portion of our campsite fences and barricades, gates, etc. are all done with twine and logs in the 3-4" diameter range. In this wet environment though, rot is a serious issue, so anything intended to be more permanent needs to be treated properly. The twine & log solution is ideal for troop sites & non-permanent axeyards, as it's low-impact to the environment.

For the smithy area, I could easily see a lot of uses for more durable woodcraft hurdles- a barrier to keep folks away from the coal bin, used instead of rope around our axeyard, etc.

[Charles R. Stevens]

Ties in nicely with wood lot/forestly management leasons as well. As often small wood and brush must be cleared to encorage healthy groth of timber as well as fire danger midigation. Not to mention reintraducing coppice management for substainible small wood harvists. In our neck of the woods eastern red cedar has become a wild land fire hazard do to poore management (the use of fire to manage grass lands destroys them befor they become an issue, but agressive fire supression produces an ideal enviroment for them to colinize) so this rot risistant timber is redily avalable for base logs and posts. As well as using the limb wood for staves. Id you wrap your posts (below ground) with the polly plastic based Ice dam barior, rot resistant timbers will last much longer, and borate based tratments wont leach away.

[VaughnT]

Dealing with kids, you're going to have to overbuild just to counter their ability to break bowling balls with rubber mallets.  Kids are great at finding the weaknesses in any design!

Also, I'm strongly inclined to do something that's more complicated, but demonstrates the abilities of the trade.  While a screw-in pintle would certainly work, this puts most of the visual in the wood.  The timber wraps, on the other hand, show you a lot of various smithing techniques and can be decorated to add some serious decorative flair.

The number of gates is a bit disconcerting.  To have 4 swing-out gates seems rather overkill because you just won't be moving that much stuff.  Even if you pack it all away for the winter, you can still do all of that with one gate and a small tractor.

What I would suggest is that you have pullout knee walls for three of the sections.  You could still use the timber wraps as fastening points, tying the entire motif together with the pintle hinges on the swing-out portions.  And, they would be a lot stronger as well as cheaper to build.

As for the size of the pintles.... I'm all about going big.  1" pintles might seem massive, but you know you'll have dozens and dozens of kids putting their weight on the gates.  Over a few years, the wear and tear will be rather significant.  Plus, big iron makes a strong visual statement.  If you use 2" stock to make the timber wraps, a 1/2" pintle will seem rather dinky.

And, you're dealing with kids that are fully capable of breaking just about anything.  Using big heavy stock might make the job harder on you, but kids really don't care how hard an adult has to work.  

Your job as an adult is to counter the natural inclination of the kids.