Building a Front Door

[Dave Dionne]

Ok
So I went from the building window thread to building a door thread. I have a 200+ year old house that is big need of a new set of front doors. The ones in there now leak cold air wicked, I love the old glass with the bubbles and ripples but not energy efficiant or really not safe and secure.

So any books or website you would suggest? I was thinking rift sawn white oak, and maybe pinned mortise and tenon joinery? They are double doors each one 26" wide and I because of the layout of the house and stair case I really need to keep them as double doors.

Thanks for any help you can give

Dave

[Derek Tuchscherer]

If I remember correctly Norm did a solid front door on one of his shows. Might want to check his site.

I will see if I can find a link.

Derek

[Derek Tuchscherer]

Found it!

http://www.newyankee.com/getproduct3.cgi?0702

Derek

[Jamie Buxton]

You can build it from thick stock, cutting big mortise and tenon joints. A different approach is to build it from three layers of thinner stock. Almost for free you get great big bridle joints at all the corners. In the pic below, I've shown the three layers at one corner of the door, separated for clarity. You build the door in layers. You lay out all the parts for the first layer, then glue on the parts for the second layer, then glue on the parts for the third layer. It is fast because you don't cut joints, and it is strong because you have huge glue surfaces at the joints.

[Norman Pyles]

Wow, Jamie that's a great idea.

[Bill Hylton]

Hey Dave,

There was a thread on this topic just a couple of months ago. Here's the link to my response, which I guess will get you the whole thread.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?p=666164#poststop

The topic has also been discussed at the woodnet forums. You could search the archives there. I recall reading some good info from experienced door builders.

Good luck. It's a fun project.

Bill

[Bill Hylton]

Just curious, Jamie. Have you actually ever built an exterior door this way? I'm skeptical. I've built a couple of pieces in which I created through mortises for tusk tenons by laminating three layers of wood pretty much the way you suggest. I can see differences in the layers as the wood expands and contracts in these constructions. Nothing major, but these pieces are indoors. An exterior door gets really tortured.

Bill

[Jamie Buxton]

Just curious, Jamie. Have you actually ever built an exterior door this way? I'm skeptical. I've built a couple of pieces in which I created through mortises for tusk tenons by laminating three layers of wood pretty much the way you suggest. I can see differences in the layers as the wood expands and contracts in these constructions. Nothing major, but these pieces are indoors. An exterior door gets really tortured.

Bill

I haven't built one like this myself, but can think of no reason why laminated stiles and rails should be any more troublesome than unlaminated. I lifted the idea from a friend who built his front door this way. It is one of those wiiide Craftsman-style doors -- 48" I think. The door is at least 20 years old now, and still looks great.

["Jason Belous"]

this months fine homebuilding has an article on building doors. a very easy way and solid loose tenon joinery. The laminating plan works well.

[Brad Shipton]

I thought Norms was a poor attempt by a woodworker. Nails and trim pieces on a professional door, I think not. Cope and Stick if you want a profile. I did mine with MT joinery, as my read about the laminating trick was that its a bad idea unless you live in a dry climate and the door has good weather protection. Do a search on the Woodweb, tons of great discussions from pro's making a business out of this. I went to stave core since finding quarter sawn wood was diff at the time. Think this through carefully before you go forward. There are many aspects of this that might surprise you and some speciality tooling if you want the proper sweeps and gaskets.

Good luck.

[Jim Becker]

Brad, an alternative view is that many doors produced a long time ago used built-up techniques for decorations that were applied with mechanical fasteners. Cope and stick may be beyond the ablity of many home woodworkers for this kind of thing due to the thickness...you kinda need a shaper to do it right. Most of us don't have one.

[Denise Ohio]

Ok
...I love the old glass with the bubbles and ripples but not energy efficiant or really not safe and secure...

You may be able to get that old glass insulated. Maybe not. A pal of mine does sandblasted glass and will get the single pane turned into an insulated unit that is then mounted into the window or door.

I also know people will get stained glass pieces insulated as well, so you may be able to use your old glass in your new door. Of course, there may be issues regarding code-required tempered glass...my IRC is in the new house and it's way too cold for me to go out and get it. I have a dim memory that insulated tempered glass is required in doors if the glass is over a certain size and/or a certain height from the floor.

Anyway, good luck with it.

[Paul Girouard]

Have you thought about making it a 3-0 door with two sidelights ? Keeps you within your RO but gets you a nice size entry door , 2-6's are to narrow , IMO ,for main exterior doors to a house.

[Charles McCracken]

Cope and stick may be beyond the ablity of many home woodworkers for this kind of thing due to the thickness...you kinda need a shaper to do it right. Most of us don't have one.

Jim,

While I agree that a shaper would be more efficient at cutting the stiles and rails, it is often difficult to get the stub spindle and recessed cutters needed to make long tenons. Router bits offer the ability to make long tenons and we make them for stock up to 2-1/4" thick:
http://www.freudtools.com/p-208-entry-interior-door-router-bit-set.aspx

[Jim Becker]

Charles, it seems to me that whether you use a router table or a shaper to cut the cope and stick, one could route for loose tenons, matching the groove width left by the cope and stick. Same would hold true for cutting the cope/stick with a dado blade (straight tongue and groove)...or even a bridle joint created with a bandsaw after milling the stiles and over-length rails.

So many choices!!

[Charles McCracken]

Jim,

That is quite true. Many choices, indeed. And opinions vary as to the best method of joinery. I would advise anyone considering a project like this to evaluate their tooling and skill level, then study up on the different types of joinery and their strengths and weaknesses to decide what fits.

[Brad Shipton]

Jim, I agree that a shaper is really needed to produce cope and stick for door parts. One will burn out a router trying to cut the deep profiles required. Freud did come out with some router bits to produce entrance doors, but I am not convinced a router will hold up to building doors. I expected more from Norm. I understand the goal to show other woodworkers what they can do with typical equipment, but he is a master craftsman. I think he should set the bar a little higher to push people to try new things. He relies far too much on the pin nailer for my liking.

I started with Mission style, with MT jointery and this can be produced by many without the need of a shaper. Most will be limited to a 3" tenon if they have a 10" blade on their TS, but that is pretty good if your stiles are 4.5" or so. One can also go to floating tenons too. The mortise can be done on a drill press and pared with a good ol chiesel if you dont want to buy a mortise machine. It is great feeling of accomplishment to get a good fitting MT. I did purchase a shaper, and quickly found the tooling was the bigger cost. It is a wonderful machine and with a power feeder, one can produce moulding too. The bigger part of this fellows project that seems to be missed, is the door frame. The door slab is one thing (quite frankly the easy part), but if you do not want great leakage like wood doors of the past, one needs weatherstripping. Most set these in grooves in the frame so it closes correctly and it takes some interesting tools to make a rebate and a small groove for the weatherstripping. I am only building interior doors, and honestly underestimated the project. After building the first one I truly understood when the pros said building a full size door is very different from cab doors.

Its all fun in the end and the one with the coolest tools when its done wins. ha!ha!

[Bill Hylton]

I want to add to what Brad has posted, and answer a question from Jim.

Having built a pair of traditional raised panel doors with routers, I don't see that having a shaper is essential for the work (unless you're going into fairly high-volume production). I was kind of surprised to see that shaper cutters (I checked several shaper catalogs, Freud among them) are configured to form a panel groove that's only 1/4" wide. The Infinity router bit set I used forms a 1/2" wide panel groove, and the Freud bit set a 5/8" wide groove. I think there's advantages to the wider grooves. The volume of material being removed in a cut isn't all that dramatic; if you're concerned about it, stage the coping and sticking cuts, so you complete the workpieces in two or three passes instead of one.

I used floating tenons instead of integral tenons. Using a DW625, a Microfence edge guide with stop collars on the rods, a Leigh 1/2" upspiral bit, and a shop-built mortising block, I routed 40 mortises for each door, all 3/4" wide and many of them 3" deep. (Comment to Jim--when you rout mortises for loose tenons--or cut them with a slot mortiser--the width of the panel groove cut by the cope and stick cuts is immaterial.)

There's a small shop near me that builds high-end custom doors. I got a shop tour and a chance to chat with the three guys working in it. They use staved construction, excavate the mortises with an Italian mortiser that cuts like the Festool Domino (no hollow chisels), and cut the tenons on an ancient tenoner. The sticking is routed with a PC 690 hanging in a fir-plywood worktable. No shaper in the shop, as I recall.

Anyway, if you hanker to build some doors for your house, routers do a good job. (Given the free time, I'm planning on building several more.) Beyond bits, you shouldn't have to invest in new tools.

Bill

[Dixon Peer]

Look at our website for an example of the doors I build for our spec homes. They are 2 1/4" thick, laminated stiles, solid rails. The panels are "trapped" between panel moldings on both sides that are pinned and glued to a 3/4" spline that's installed in a groove machined in the middle of the stiles and rails that coincides with tenons that are formed on the rails. I don't know if this is a good enough verbal description of my method, but anyway, it is a really professional way to build an entrance door. It helps to have a good bandsaw to resaw the veneers you need for the stiles (of whatever species you are building the door from), a good shaper to machine the groove to accept the spline and cut the tenons on the rails, and a dowel boring machine (in my case, a Newton).

When clamping up the door, I would advise using "scant" dowels to ease the process. The dowels will swell with the application of glue, and if you're using a 5/8" dowel and a 5/8" dowel boring bit, you're going to have a good time drawing everything together. I've gone that route, and it raises quite a sweat when you're concerned you're not going to have a good glue up after all the time you've spent making the parts.

[James Biddle]

Silly question, but for those of you that build exterior doors with raised panels, how do you deal with the potential of moisture seeping into the floating joint between the panel and the frame?

[Jim Becker]

(Comment to Jim--when you rout mortises for loose tenons--or cut them with a slot mortiser--the width of the panel groove cut by the cope and stick cuts is immaterial.)

Yes, that makes sense...I wasn't thinking clearly. Those mortises are totally hidden... :o

[Dixon Peer]

Silly question, but for those of you that build exterior doors with raised panels, how do you deal with the potential of moisture seeping into the floating joint between the panel and the frame?

Nothing silly about this question, and something I have thought about frequently. I build my houses with porticoes or front porches whenever the zoning ordinance allows me the space to do so. It's always a good idea to keep your millwork out of the weather.

As far as constructing a door that'll be resistant to sheets of rain falling against it, I don't have an answer. One could use one of the fiberglass or steel doors I suppose, if one didn't care about authenticity or the "look".

[Dave Dionne]

Sorry have been of line for a week or more, just wanted to say thansk to everybody that contributed to this discussion. Now I have to figure out what I want to do, nothing till the spring to cold now anyway.

Thanks again

Dave