A bit further on now but slow progress as I'm having to sharpen and change blades and de-clutter, haven't used my machinery for a long time.
To those that asked, "Yes there is a middle and bottom rail". The sketch is just a front view so I could get an impression of the proportions of the gate and ask approval from the person having it.
First thing I decided to do was make the curved top. So I marked out the width of the gate on a scrap of ply.
I only had scraps of ply laying around so made do with half the width.
With the radius marked so the curves met I then used a router and fixed it to a board. I fixed a nail in the board where the centre of the radius is and set the edge of the router cutter to the outer edge of the curve.
Once set up I router the top curve on the outer side of the line up to the intersection between the two curves. I used a block of wood screwed to to the ply base to stop the router at the point of intersection. The lower curve is cut on the reverse radius and on the inner side of the line.
Next was to pin the template to the roughly shaped top rail and machine it to shape on the spindle using the template as a guild.
Router reversed for opposite radius.
The finished template. You can may see why I used a stop block on the top cut, if I had not the router would have gone right through the template at the intersection.
This template was only thin and half the width of the gate so I sat it on top of a thicker wider piece of ply and used a bearing guide to machine a full width template.
Full width template
I marked the top curved rail from the template and cut it slightly oversize on the bandsaw.
Oversized top rail ready for machining.
Next was to pin the template to the roughly shaped top rail and machine it to shape on the spindle using the template as a guild.
I used a spindle moulder for cutting top rail to shape. A rebate block was set in the spindle moulder and a ring fence set to guide the template.
Initial setting up.
First I set the height of the cutter so it cut slightly above the timber but not too much that it ruined the template as the template was needed for the ring ring fence to run along.
Next I set the cutter so it was in line with the ring fence.
Fortunately on this occasion the cutter lined up nicely with the embossed mark on the ring fence but they don't always, hence the black markers on previous occasions.
All set I fit the guarding to enclose the cutter as much as possible.
Template pinned to the oversized top rail with hand holds each end.
Top rail machined to match profile of template.
Template removed
Time for a cup of tea
Mark