Interior door construction

[ADAM GROSS]

I am thinking off changing out my interior doors in my house. When we built the house 5 years ago the thought was to put in a cheaper door and possibly one day change them out for a nicer more appropriate door for our house. My wife and I love the arts and craft/ mission styles. The doors that we have now are hollow core smooth doors, very boring, with craftsman style casings . I would like to build a 3 panel craftsman stlye door (large rectangle on top with 2 long rectangles running up and down). I've started to do some research on construction techniques to build these doors. I would like to hear from the community here if anyone who has or builds doors to hear your thoughts on practices. I would also like know what you guys think about wood species. I do prefer the quartersawn or rift sawn white oak but I worry about the doors being to busy with the flake (which I love) of the oak. I used quartersawn ash on one off my last projects and didn't mind it too much. Plus the price off ash is quite cheap around here considering all the ash trees are being attacked by an insect and killing the trees. I just don't know if I could find ash plywood for the panels. I know that I can get qtr sawn white oak plywood locally, not sure how the ash/white oak combo would look. I would also be curios to see what the craftsman period houses used for their doors. In my shop I do have a powermatic benchtop mortiser and was planning on using it for the mortises. When I bought the mortiser I also bought the riser kit, but have not installed it yet. Thanks for any suggestions that you guys can provide.

[Sam Layton]

Hi Adam,

I am building all of the doors in my house. I posted one build in the Woodworking Projects sections. Do a search for, Interior door build, go to page 7, posted 10-31-09. If you can't find it let me know. I am using riff sawn red oak for my doors. I am not crazy about the flake that quarter sawn produces. If you have any questions please let me know.

Sam

[Mike Wilkins]

Ash would be a great timber for door construction, and if desired, you could stain/dye/color to the Craftsman style finish. As for Ash plywood; I have used veneer to make panels before, especially since I did'nt have enough solid wood to make panels. Use 1/4" or thicker plywood veneered on both sides, and insert into grooves in the rails/stiles. Deep mortises with loose splines could be used for joints, since there is a lot of glue surface. Or put the Powermatic to work and make traditional mortise & tenon joints. Good luck and watch those fingers.

[Gene Davis]

The companies like Woodport and Karona that make these, build the stiles and rails as engineered sections, with a core of particleboard, edges of resawn species, and species veneers on the faces. Panels are panel material, veneer over MDF cores, and sticking, which is what the door companies call the perimeter moldings of the panels, is solid species. I've a house full of these in cherry, and they are gorgeous.

With a resaw bandsaw, you could do this in species on the faces, with the "veneer" being 1/16" or as much as 1/8" when finished. Your stile and rail glueups might get nicely done with the help of a bag press.

The door makers do this method because of the cost of solid-sawn lumber, and also to make a more stable end product.

[Greg Hawthorne]

I'm currently making a few doors and using the Freud door set (99 267) and I've found it to be pretty good. As they're external doors, I'm using m&t, but for internal doors, I would be happy with just the bead and cove - saves a lot of effort. I'm using softwood, which the Freud handles quite well, but I haven't tried it with hardwood, so you might have to test it hardwood if that is your preference.

[Frank Drew]

...for internal doors, I would be happy with just the bead and cove - saves a lot of effort. No tenons, no dowels, no biscuits, no nothin'? No mechanical reinforcement to the glue line you'd get with cope and stick (if I understand you correctly)? That would be a heck of a strain on the hinge side of that door.

[David Keast]

I've built several in european (white) oak and in chestnut for my 17th C house. I use pegged M&T joints throughout and raised solid panels in the same timber as the stiles etc. Nothing has moved, not even a european millimetre, in several years, but I would not trust lesser joints. Cope and stick for full size doors would be asking for problems in my view.

[Paul Grant]

I've made many interior doors from various hardwoods. Mostly M&T and some dowelled, neither have had issue. Good joinery is always a safe bet.

[Greg Hawthorne]

No tenons, no dowels, no biscuits, no nothin'? No mechanical reinforcement to the glue line you'd get with cope and stick (if I understand you correctly)? That would be a heck of a strain on the hinge side of that door.

Yes, I meant cope and stick.:o

When testing the strength of the joint produced by the basic profile of the Freud set (no mortise and tenon), I glued a sample joint (Kleiberit 303) and seriously tried to break it, but it held quite firmly, so with reasonably wide rails, I would be pretty confident that m&t joints are not really necessary. However, one of the advantages of the Freud set is that m&t is relatively simple if you want traditional joinery and you don't mind spending the time cutting the tenons.

[David Kumm]

I use loose tenons on all doors. 2.5 to 3" wide. Double if needed. 1/2" think on 1 3/8 doors and 5/8 on 1 3/4. Much prefer the look and feel of 1 3/4 even for interior. With a full 1/2 panel to work with you can bandsaw veneer 3/8 ply and get a really superior result. Use good ball bearing hinges. Emtek makes pretty decent ones at a reasonable price. I'm sure you can thank the Chinese but a good hinge for the price with many finishes. I epoxy all the tenons as you need slow setting to get it all done. Mix a little fine saw dust and the epoxy fills the gap as I make the slots a little longer to allow for some adjustment. The epoxy fill is structural and the sawdust adds even more strength to the joint. The doors will outlive us all. Dave

[TomKinley 01]

I've built tones of MDF doors, they are a frigging lot of work but they are economical and you can get them to look pretty good with some effort.

[Mike Hollingsworth]

I've built tons of MDF doors, they are a frigging lot of work but they are economical
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