Building carriage doors for garage.

[Will Allen]

Hello all,
After years of procrastination I have decided to build carriage doors for the garage. The opening is 7' high and 8'6"; wide. Located in Minnesota and facing west with decent shade. I'm looking for advice on wood to use and constuction techniques. I would like to have a natural look but will go with painted if I must.
Anyone have any experience with this?

Thanks in advance.

[Neil Gaskin]

White oak would be my first choice. Honduran Mahogany would be a close second. Sourcing the mahogany is not as easy in my local. Ipe would last forever but is heavy and a pain to work. Cypress is not s bad choice either but I would paint it. Not natural finish.

[jack duren]

Weight comes with proper support. If you paint you can repair easily....

[Dave Richards]

Are you planning to make real swinging doors? Are these doors you'll need to open in the winter? When it snows you'll need to clear it before they can be opened. A friend of mine in Excelsior, MN rehabbed an old house with a two car garage. It had carriage doors which were replaced with overhead doors that look like the old ones. Might be a thing to consider.

[Will Allen]

Excelsior is just down the road from me. Yes, these will be swinging double doors. It's a project that I have been contemplating for a long time and this winter I plan to finally do it.

[peter gagliardi]

CVg Doug Fir, Utile, Sapele, Old growth Cypress if you can find it, Teak if you can afford it, Or true Honduras Mahogany would be about all I would consider.
Ipe, and White oak are fine for some outside projects, but a poor choice for this application in my opinion. You just do not want or need that much weight for a swinging door. you would seriously need to revisit your framing details to support these.
You want strong, light, and stable.

[lowell holmes]

I favor white oak for wood exposed to the elements. It is easily found and excellent for out door applications.

[Jamie Buxton]

I'd build the door as a torsion box skinned on the outside with pretty hardwood. The torsion box gives you rigidity and light weight, and the hardwood skin gives you good looks. The torsion box would be 3-4" thick, with 1/4" skins. The frame would be 1-by material, except on the hinge side where it would be 2-by lumber. The lumber would be dry, so that the box doesn't warp -- whatever species you get locally that is kiln dried. I'd consider white oak for the outside skin. I'd run the planks vertically, and use unglued tongue-and-groove joints between them. Each plank would be fastened near the middle to the torsion box, and the T&G joints allow hygroscopic expansion and shrinkage while preventing water penetration into the door's structure. I'd put metal flashing on the top of the door, because water may get to standing on the top. I'd use hefty hinges with substantial screws -- likely three hinges per door. I'd figure out the plan for locking the doors before I built the doors; scabbing locks on afterwards may not work well. I'd use what's called "semitransparent stain" in the paint stores. It is intended to be used as an exterior finish, so it can handle UV and weather.

[Martin Wasner]

Plastic. Minnesota weather is hard on things.

[Tyler Schroeder]

If you have a Fine Homebuilding subscription, they have a good article on building carriage doors - I plan to follow these guidelines for a set of doors this winter as well!

http://www.finehomebuilding.com/2012/03/08/dress-up-a-garage-door-with-insulated-carriage-doors

[Will Allen]

Thank you for the information. It looks like a good plan.

[John TenEyck]

Cedar or white pine is probably what was used historically in your area. Light and pretty weather resistant if it's kept painted. The pine doors on my parents' garages are over 90 years old with rot only where they sagged onto the ground.

If you want a clear finish then mahogany is hard to beat.

John

[Terry Therneau]

I have built 2 sets. Not surprisingly the second went a touch faster than the first :-). In both cases the cement outside the door slopes down a 1/2" per foot which makes the swing easy. My goal was to be able to open the doors when needed but have excellent weather seals most of the time.

Basic plan: Use engineered 2x4 to build a 4x7 box, 1.5" thick, add vertical studs at 16 or 24" within the opening, fill with 1.5" rigid iso foam, then glue and nail 1/4 plywood to each side. (Before any of this make sure you have a flat reference surface via winding sticks, of course, or you will build a very stable and un-straightenable spiral door.) The engineered studs start straight and stay straight. I used pocket screws for the frame because it was easier, but it is the glued skin that gives rigidity. We glued the insulation to the plywood also. Start a little less than 4x7, since at the end you will put a 3/4 band of wood around it that you want to look at, and then cover the front with something else you want to look at. For my woodshop I didn't band it since it would be opened rarely and who would see the edges but me? The exterior had 3/4 cedar added in the classic pattern so it looks like frame and panel, then painted to match the building. Make sure interior studs line up with exterior trim so you have something solid to nail to, of course. If you want windows in it (I didn't) I have seen articles that suggest double pane replacement lights for an outside door, worked into the design. The doors were painted to match the building colors.

Because this would not be daily entry/exit of a car I put down a treated 2x6 as a sill, beveled a bit so it sloped out, with a removable 2x4 center post (30 seconds to remove or replace.) Standard door stop molding on the inside (sides and top) was first passed along the table saw blade, raised 1/2" and partly buried in the fence, so that when installed it has a slot on the door edge just right for entrance door weatherstripping. The lower weatherstrip is also standard stuff from a big box store (acutally 1 + 1/3 end to end).

You will need deep reach hinges, 3 per side, and a deep reach handle and/or deadbolt. My shop door opens from the inside and has no outside handle (the normal door is just around the corner); my son's faces a busy street and he opted for just a deadbolt. (He has an older house with a very narrow tuck under, you'ld need a skinny car plus a skinny driver.) The doors are heavy but so what? With good hinges it opens very smoothly.

Terry T.

[Bill Adamsen]

Those doors on in the FineWoodworking article look very nice. I built more primitive insulated doors for my barn and they work pretty well. They are Eastern white pine clad over a douglass fir core.The most expensive part was the offset hinge which I had custom made by a blacksmith who specializes in hinges and had the loads figured out. The snow issue is definitely a consideration. It is manageable in my case primarily because the access is via elevated planks, so snow removal is easy.

[peter Joseph]

I built similar doors for my shop. Pics are on an old iphone, ill see if I can round them up. I started with 8/4 poplar and painted them bc I wanted something servicable. If you're using rail and stile construction, get the doormaking bits from freud. Using them in different configurations allows you to make a complete door. You just need to chop the mortises. One word of caution; despite meticulously caring for these doors, I did start to get some rot at the bottom after 9 years. If I didnt sell the home this past year, id of had to replace the bottom rail.

[John Gulick]

I built similar doors for my shop. Pics are on an old iphone, ill see if I can round them up. I started with 8/4 poplar and painted them bc I wanted something servicable. If you're using rail and stile construction, get the doormaking bits from freud. Using them in different configurations allows you to make a complete door. You just need to chop the mortises. One word of caution; despite meticulously caring for these doors, I did start to get some rot at the bottom after 9 years. If I didnt sell the home this past year, id of had to replace the bottom rail.

Peter, we have found poplar to be unacceptable for exterior use (in the Northeast) and have build several sets with basic select grade Eastern white pine stile/rail, mortise/tenon construction glued with Titebond II. If taken care of should outlast most of us easily.

Home Depot has relatively inexpensive strap hinges with nylon inserts. They hold up great after 6 years with no sign of wearing at all

[Bill Bukovec]

As a former Excelsior, MN resident, I'd go with painted cedar. Any clear finish I have tried outside failed and looked bad after a few years. Looking forward to seeing the finished project. Good luck.

[Mike Ontko]

Will, I've got a similar project that I offered to do for the owner of the barn where my wife keeps her horse. My related post is here: Tips On Barn Door Construction...for an Actual Barn (http://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?259174-Tips-On-Barn-Door-Construction-For-An-Actual-Barn). There's a link to an article in Mother Earth News that outlines three different methods of construction. I live in the Maritime Pacific Northwest, where moisture from rain is more of a concern than snow and ice. Cedar and redwood are my materials of choice, if not marine grade plywood and pressure treated lumber.

[John C Bush]

Hi Will,
I built these doors 18 yrs ago-milled from beams from our 120 y.o. Ill. barn(also used the beams structurally to look like a barn inside--you can take the boy off the farm...)--had local door supplier make the frame with hinges and hung them myself!! Not a carpenter by trade and it was surprisingly not that difficult even with their size-- 9' X 4'. I added a strip of old rubber conveyor belt to seal the bottom but when windy and rainy water can blow thru the top, hence the stained look. Good Luck


OOPS! No techie here. Not sure why is rotated.