What is the rabbit, in door jambs?

[dirk martin]

I'm not real familiar with all the parts that makeup a door.

I understand the jambs are the long side pieces that go from the floor to the top header. One jamb will have hinges on it, and the other will have accept the latch...is that right?

The latche side jamb.....it's common that that jamb will have a rabbit cut into it, the full legth...is that correct?

If I'm correct on this so far, then what's the typical width, and depth of this rabbit?

[Andrew Nemeth]

On many traditionally constructed doors there is a rabbet running the full length of the jamb to act as an integrated door-stop. I have milled new jamb stock that includes this rabbet and I have also laminated 5/16 thick stock directly to a "contemporary" jamb after removing the door-stop to mimic the "traditional" look. Essentially, this retrofitted piece is a really wide door-stop.

Hope this helps,
Andrew

[Neal Clayton]

I'm not real familiar with all the parts that makeup a door.

I understand the jambs are the long side pieces that go from the floor to the top header. One jamb will have hinges on it, and the other will have accept the latch...is that right?

The latche side jamb.....it's common that that jamb will have a rabbit cut into it, the full legth...is that correct?

If I'm correct on this so far, then what's the typical width, and depth of this rabbit?

varies. store bought hollow core pre-hung units will of course try to use as little wood as possible. with a solid wood door you will get more movement between seasons, and thus, imo, should make the stop a bit higher. with a solid door i typically cut the stop 1/2" high. 3/8" would be more common and imo, a minimum, for a solid door.

as for the means of cutting/assembling, this is the old school way...

dado out either the top or the sides so that gravity holds them together. after it's in the wall, nails/screws are superfluous. of course door frames aren't designed to bear weight, but if they wind up doing so due to settlement in the wall, they can if cut like this. the left picture has a transom so the dado must be on the sides, the middle is a door without a transom so the top can take the dado on those (easier to cut, shorter board, can just cut the dado with a miter sled on a table saw).

i cut the stop with a single dado blade, with two passes that meet at a point. the rabbets going across the grain with a RAS. router with a hinge bit would work as well.

if the door opens into another room it's typical to cut the stop the same on both sides, to give a look of symmetry. if it opens into a closet or some such, it's acceptable to just cut the stop on one side.

i try to keep the overall thickness at 1.25" to 1.5"

[Mike Goetzke]

Dirk - I built my first door for our house end of last year (an entrance door). I built my door with sidelights so the vertical members are called posts. In this photo you can see the bottom of the posts - they have a sort of difficult to make angled cut to match the bottom sill. You can see I cut a deep kerf for the door seal. Like said above the dado is to support the seal and act as a stop:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/mbg/Projects/Entrance%20Door/Frame/IMG_0287.jpg

[Neal Clayton]

that's another good point, don't bet on the floor beneath being perfectly flat even on interior floors. good practice to cut the entire frame long by about an inch, so that you can adjust the angle on the floor by a degree or so either way to make sure it winds up snug against the floor.

and try to cut the dadoes all in one day. boards that long will tend to move a bit after they're surfaced. if you surface the boards one day and come back the next, you will very likely find them warped/twisted a bit, which makes cutting that precise a dado over such a long length all but impossible. you should cut the dadoes right after the boards are surfaced while they're still straight. if they have twist/bow when they're hung that's not as big a deal, since you can bend them as you set the nails/screws.

try to shim directly behind each hinge on the hinge side (taking care not to wind up with nails/screws behind the hinge mortise itself, otherwise you can run into them with the hinge screws), and wherever on the top and other side, that's not as critical. if at all possible, use nails/screws long enough to go entirely through the shim and into the stud.

[Brice Burrell]

It depends on the type of door. Exterior doors have these dadoes milled in both the hinge and latch or strike of the jambs (and in the head too). They are always the width or thickness of the door (most exterior doors are 1 3/4" thick) and around 1/2" deep or so. Interior doors almost always have a second piece called door stop or simply stop, added onto the jamb instead of the a dado milled into the jamb.