Guidance Needed For Interior Door Construction [Archive] - Sawmill Creek Woodworking Community

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Lewis Cobb

02-14-2010, 9:08 PM

Hello -

My wife and I have convinced ourselves that the door to her stained glass work room would be much nicer if it was like a french door but with a large stained glass panel in it that she would design and make.

Never having built a door before, and seeing some of the outstanding work done by others on this forum, I am a bit nervous about tackling this. What I would like to build is a simple 1 3/8" thick frame - 2 rails, 2 stiles, and rabbet a groove in the back for the glass to drop into and he held in with some small moulding.

Questions -
1) I am thinking it would be safer for stability to laminate the rails and styles from 2 pieces of thinner stock each. The room is in a basement and the humidity can creep up down there in the summer months. The door will be sealed and painted.

2) What type of wood? I am thinking perhaps soft maple - it has a tight grain and is fairly cheap around my area. Should take the paint well.

3) I don't have any big door making bits for the router/table. I am wondering if I could simply make the joints with large loose tenons ? If so, what depth and width should I be thinking about for the mortises? The door width is 36".

- Any other "watch out for this" sort of comments are welcome as well.

Thanks,
Lewis

Richard Coers

02-14-2010, 11:47 PM

Lewis,
I always like to laminate in odd numbers of plys. Balanced construction that way, but can't say that it would be an absolute necessity. If you can get some quartersawn, I wouldn't be afraid of using a single thickness. I would use 1/2" loose tenons, and width depending on rail width. I always use two loose tenons in the bottom rail since it will be around 10+" wide. I couldn't tell if you are using panels in the bottom of the door or not. I sure would to prevent any knee accidents. Moldings are nice to hold in the panels, and it will look like you did have the router bits. Soft maple is a great choose. I made some "cheap" shop doors from soft maple frames and luan plywood panels. They looked great with an oil finish! My greatest door story? I did the entrance doors to our "World Famous Big Al's Strip Club" here in Peoria. I made them 12 years ago. That's a lot of openings, or so I'm told. Haven't seen them up close for a long time now!

Sam Layton

02-15-2010, 12:31 AM

Hi Lewis,

I just finished an interior door a little while back. Do a search for, "Interior door build" and check it out.

I laminated the stiles and rails for stability. I also used loose tenons for the construction, works great.

Sam

Lewis Cobb

02-15-2010, 9:26 AM

Richard - It's taken me a while to get back to typing - I was laughing so hard when I read your post my wife had to come and see what the fuss was about. She left with a frown after reading about Big Al's and muttering some generalizations about men....

I was not going to use a panel in the bottom of the door but your comment about knee accidents has given me pause for thought. The door won't see a huge amount of "action" and I was hoping to construct it like the french doors we have upstairs that are large single glass panels. The bottom rail on those are 9".

How deep should I think about the mortises? I have a 2" spiral bit for the router but perhaps I should consider something longer ?

Sam - Your door thread was one of the ones that depressed me - :D Simply amazing work. I did come away with a few tips for my skill level though - the I beam for lamination is something that I am going to build very soon - I can see all kinds of uses for a couple of those.

Jeff Gunter

06-12-2010, 11:27 AM

Neal Clayton

06-12-2010, 2:28 PM

you don't want angle iron, else you'll be back to the drapes. metal is a conductor, so they'll wind up hot in the summer and cold in the winter. i have steel casements in two ~1930s era sunrooms that were added to my house, trust me i know ;). don't even like walking past those rooms in the winter time. yes, you can have narrow frames within reason, since the glass will hold it straight. you do need to try and at least get 1.25" thick though. most wooden windows are 1 3/8" just like an interior door.

as for windows, i build them (traditional double hungs mostly, the old style counterweighted on pulleys). there's alot of design leeway in a wooden window but there are some inherent principles that should be followed.

the main considerations off the top of my head...

1) you want lumber that tends to stay stable through the seasons and therefore, straight once surfaced. in this part of the world, that's cypress. cedars (spanish cedar in particular) also do well, or if you want hardwood, white oak or (on the higher end) mahogany. of course alot of this depends on whether they'll be paint or stain and if 'stain grade', the look you want.

2) there are two camps of debate on how much is required for joinery, and alot of that depends on your glazing technique. sometimes traditional wooden windows were only mortised at the corners, and muntins were just nailed in place, with the idea being that the glass once glazed in would hold it together. this seems cheap'ish but there are plenty of examples of century+ old windows that work fine this way. after all, glass doesn't want to flex, so it does a pretty good job of holding boards straight if it's stuck to them. the other is of course that every joint should be mortised and then it can't rack or twist because the joints wont let it. i do mortise every joint including muntins in mine, since it's a simple extra step to mortise muntin holes when the cope on the ends cuts the tenon anyway. if you don't plan to have any muntins, this doesn't apply.

3) the corners should absolutely be mortised, although i don't bother with a closed/hidden joint. the trick to getting seasonal stability from a wooden window is exposed end and edge grain so that any moisture that does get in, can dry back out. so with that in mind i use bridle joints at the corners. that way both rail and stile have their ends exposed. since these are inside that's not as much of a concern and you don't have to worry with leaving the edges unfinished as you would with a window that's exposed to the outside, but it's consistent with proper wooden window design so no reason not to do it that way. i avoid a mortiser for the corner bridle joints if at all possible, opting for dado blade + tenon jig instead. cleaner cut that way, less sanding and filing to get a good fit with the tenon. if you do use a bridle joint, i put the tenon on the rails so that the butt joint in the back is pointing down (water again), but for a casement type window (or bi fold in your case) on the inside it doesn't really matter which side has the tenon and which side the mortise.

4) as with a door, the bottom rail should be wider than the top rail by about double. the bottom rail gets the most stress from opening/closing.

5) you must plan for the glass rabbet while you're cutting the parts, especially the back side of your tenons. this is hard to explain without doing it and pointing it out in person, but if you think about it it should make sense. since you're removing some of the back side of your rails/stiles for the glass rabbet you have to leave more of a shoulder on the back side of your tenon to make them flush with the stiles. that's the most obvious 'gotcha' with cutting the parts.

6) with so many small parts, often made of softwood, it's often hard to get a perfectly square glue up. so, the best way is, don't try too hard. oversize the whole by about an 8th, and just cut all 4 sides on your table saw when the glue is set. that also eliminates sanding of your corner joints on the edges. if you do use bridle joints in addition to bar/parallel clamps put a quick hand clamp on each corner pressing down as well to ensure they have good pressure. one of the many good uses of those irwin quick clamps at the BORG. you do need to ensure flat during glue up, though. if it isn't flat when it's glued it won't stay flat later. you must use titebond 3 at least, or in lieu of that some type of polyurethane glue such as gorilla glue or PL adhesive. inside glues don't last exposed to heat and moisture.

7) you have two options for glazing. glaze it with putty like a traditional window (best way) or glaze it with wooden trim nailed in (acceptable on an interior window, not on an exterior one). of course if you glaze it with putty, the outside must be painted. if you intend to stain both sides the wooden trim is the only way. either way, set the glass with a thin bed of either glazing putty or polyurethane caulk and glazing points. the wood will move but the glass won't, so you have to use a flexible seal on the glass, else the wood movement will break it. i typically use a 3/8 square rabbet and leave the glass 1/16 short all the way around.

8) the window should be 1/16 to 1/8 short of the opening all the way around, and the best weather stripping is the spring bronze type if you opt for weather stripping to try to create a better seal. if you're careful to get the size just right you can get a snug seal that won't allow any air intrustion, and the spring bronze weather stripping won't ever wear out, it'll still be on the wall in fine shape long after both you and i are dead and gone. skip the cheap foam/plastic weather stripping option unless you like replacing weather stripping every other year. kilian's hardware (google it) sells spring bronze rolls in all possible sizes if your local hardware store doesn't still carry it. you simply nail it in the jamb with copper nails, stretching it flat as you go. there's the V type or the flat type. the flat type is ridged on the outside and requires a snug fit. the V type will seal loose windows. i prefer the flat type since it looks cleaner, since you're making and cutting these to a precise size you should be able to use the flat type without any issues.

9) you are effectively creating an interior storm window by doing this. if it were a casement you'd need to vent somehow. on old windows this isn't an issue since the bottom of the sash just butts up to the sill, and is sloped out to channel water away. on a modern window with a frame for the window itself that sits higher than the sill this can be an issue, but bifolds should have enough air leakage around the hinges for it not to be a problem.

10) at 54" tall a single stained glass window might have trouble staying straight. in the old days they mortised rebar into the frame like a dowel and then soldered the window to the rebar on the outside to help with that. you could do that if you absolutely want a single pane of glass, or you could divide it up into sections with muntin(s) separating them. you can skip this if you insist, a stained glass window can always be pressed back flat and resoldered, but the longer a span you have the sooner it will bow and need the joints redone to straighten it back up. "sooner" will probably still be many years, but it's a consideration either way.

11) if you do glaze it with putty in lieu of the strips, follow the directions meticulously on the glazing putty including 'skinning over' time before you paint, lest your paint fail. alternatively there is a product called 'glaze ease' that comes in a caulk gun that you can glaze with. since it's water based and not oil it will shrink a bit as it dries and not give you as good a look as traditional glazing putty, but it holds up as well as modern glazing putties from my experience with it. since it dries much faster it doesn't have the long work time of traditional glazing putty, can be painted same day. note that you're supposed to paint past the putty onto the glass by about a 16th to seal there as well. taping a 16th short and pulling the tape while the paint is still wet works. any drips or runs can be cleaned after the paint is dry with a razor scraper.

12) if it will be stain and not paint, forget about anything polyurethane based, unless you want to watch the sun gradually destroy your finish. i use waterlox for stain windows, they do have an exterior version of their regular varnish which would probably be the proper one to use, but i just use the regular interior varieties, the glass will filter the sun enough to prevent major damage to the finish. any other phenolic varnish should work fine. i'd steer clear of natural resin/linseed oil varnishes for fear of how much the sun might darken them over time.

13) as for the middle hinge, could be anything from door hinges to a piano hinge. i would personally use 3" door hinges for casements and transoms, since they also lend help to keeping the window straight. plan on using three per pair, the middle one keeps everything lined up. take care with your mortise depth on the hinges too, to ensure that you wind up with a consistent gap all the way around. use solid brass, plated hinges won't last long exposed to sunlight either.

here (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=105726) are some pics of the last double hungs i made awhile back. note the joint on the top for a better illustration of point #5, cut the back of that tenon with care lest you wind up cursing all the way to the dump with your window parts in the back of the truck ;).

Lewis Cobb

06-12-2010, 3:45 PM

So Lewis, did you ever build the door? I am thinking about building a pair of bi-fold interior window shutters. This is for privacy and I'd like to have the shutters consist mostly of stained glass. I have a window that's about 4'6" tall by 5''6" wide (a pair of double hung windows mulled together). I'm not a fan of "window treatments" like shades and curtains; to my mind all they do is provide a place for the dust to accumulate. So I'm looking for someone to tell me this is unworkably crazy.

I have glass as well as woodworking as hobbies; I've made glass panels and I've made cabinet doors. I've not, however, made a door with a glass panel insert. Particularly, since this is in front of a window, I'd like to have narrow rails and styles, especially since it will be double width at the middle of the window. Can I get away with 1" wide frames for a panel 4'6" tall and 20" wide? This will be a heavy panel, maybe I'd be better served with a frame out of small angle iron. Thoughts?

Hi Jeff - Seems Neal has done an outstanding job of educating us on this subject. Thanks very much Neal !

To answer your original question though - no I have not started this door yet. It's on the "master list" but life and several other projects have been getting in the way. Perhaps later in the fall when I'm driven back inside with the cold weather :D

Make sure you keep us posted on your shutter project - it sounds like something I can add to my list as well. I have a sunroom in the back of my house that could use something like this.

Cheers,
Lewis