Front entry doors - mahogany

[Stig Lundberg]

Hello all.

After years of procrastination I am faced with the need to make a couple of front doors for our home. The old ones are falling apart.
They each have to be 96 inch high by 36 inch wide and seven quarter thick.
The good part is that I have a Knapp 410 Profi with a good shaper 1 ¼ inch arbor with tilt. I also have a sturdy mortising machine attached on the other end of the Knapp.
How would you guys go about this? I am fairly good at furniture and stuff but have never made a door, so I need a few pointers.

Stig.

[Paul Girouard]

What style door? Raised panel , flat panel , slab , any glass?

Are you replacing the door jamb as well? If so what's you wall thickness , 4 9/16" , 6 9/16th , if you make a new jamb, will it be store bought stock or made to match your door materials ?

You should put a adjustable door sill under it and a new door bottom. And set-up your jamb to receive the kerf type door gasket / weather stripping.

If it's any of the panel type doors I'd recommend using a mortise and tenon type jointery at the style and rails.


Door are fun.

Buy your stock KD , rough it out over sized , let it sit for a couple of weeks , to see if it's going to move. Joint it all flat and true , over sized , by at least 1/4" in thickness , and 1/2" at least in width. That way you can re -true it up after it settles down.

So thats a start for what to do. :eek:

[Rick Levine]

Stig, check this out. It might be just what you need, plus it is on sale.

http://www.newyankee.com/getproduct.php?0702

[Paul Girouard]

Ya that was a good show.

Norm's a hell of a good carpenter IMO. Yes, he has some issues on the WW end , but he come a long way , he's helped a lot of people as well as gotten better at things , as we all should strive to do.

[Stig Lundberg]

Hello Paul.

They are raised panel doors, two panels per door.
There is no glass in them. We have side and top lights in the form of leaded glass.
I did not plan on replacing the door jamb since it is in good shape.
Is that something that you recommend? Or?

The bottom and top rails are seven (7) inch wide and the stiles are five (5) inch wide.
About four feet from the bottom there is a mid rail with a round shell carving in the middle, all in mahogany.

My dilemma is that I have strict orders from the inner regions of my home that the new doors MUST look like the old ones. And, it MUST be of far better quality than the present one. Perhaps you are a married man (?) If so you will understand.

My plan is to get hold of enough lumber to allow for the usual mess-ups. I will rough mill it and leave it to dry and acclimatize to the semi desert climate of Valley Center - San Diego County, California. Yes, I plan to use floating or loose tenons for maximum stability. I am playing with the idea of laminating book matched veneer (1/4) inch thick for the raised panels. I have a Laguna 24 inch band saw, ideal for re.sawing.
The real problem I have is that I am not good at hanging large doors like that. First of all, I am 76 years old and not as strong as I used to be. In addition I have never tackled a job like that. I was thinking of hiring a good “door man” from the building trade.
I guess that I am not so worried about making the doors as much as I am about installing them.

I have two choices.
One – cast all worries to the wind. Live dangerous – have an adventure – build the doors!
Two – hire a contractor – give him a check for about $ 9,000.00. Dust off the machines in the shop and watch the aftermath of the election on the tube.

Tomorrow – Monday, I will announce my decision.
If I go for the former, there will be many posts to read about a strange little man in the hills north of San Diego, struggling with heavy lumber, complete with photos.
If the second alternative wins, life will be less interesting to us all.

We shall all see what happens.

Stig Lundberg.
Furniture Crafters
www.furniturecrafter.biz (http://www.furniturecrafter.biz)

[Neal Clayton]

i agree with all of paul's comments, in addition to those...

depending on how computer savvy you are, alot of folks, myself included, like google's free 3d program called 'sketchup'. it makes drawing out the finished product to take measurements from alot easier.

i use a router table in lieu of a shaper but the principle is the same. cut the tenons with the rail cutter by gradually hogging off end copes until you get the depth you want on the tenon, it's easier than using another tool which introduces another potential source of error. use a half height stile cutter rather than full height so you have some thickness leeway preferably, if you use a full height stile cutter the thickness of your boards must be very precise. general rule of thumb is extending the tenons halfway through the stiles. prefinish your panels, so you don't have bare wood showing next year when they shrink a bit.

i use rubber barrel spacers around the panels like these...

http://www.rcrubbercompany.com/

i'm using flat panels to match old flat style 5 panel doors so it's more of an issue, might get away without them on thick raised panels, but i think it's good practice to use them anyway.

unless you are completely content with your chiseling skills, a hinge template for a router is a good investment imo. these are the commonly available choices...

http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=1226297494/ref=sr_pg_1?ie=UTF8&rs=228013&keywords=hinge%20template&rh=n%3A228013%2Ck%3Ahinge%20template&page=1

i have the full size porter cable one since i'm building lots of doors with matching frames and it's easy to flip it from jamb to door and cut all six hinge holes at once, but that's probably overkill for a single door. i would avoid the plastic ones though, i haven't personally used any of the others but outside of the porter cable setup on rails the hingemate one looks like the next best bet.

doors aren't really that difficult assuming your initial layout and measurements therefrom are correct. no need to pay a doormaker if you got the tools and the time.

[Paul Girouard]

Stig I vote you go for it. I'll check back and I'll offer advice on your thread.

On the door jamb IF it's in good shape and you haven't thru the years had to re-fit the existing door , maybe it should stay.

Your down south I see , so keeping the cold out may not be as important as it is up here.

So no rot down low on the jamb sides from wind blown rain , the jambs in basically good shape? Other than a bit old.

It's not a lot more work to make one , and one of the same type wood , would be cool , but not required.

This set of doors where in sad shape when I reworked them . Had a lot of repairs to do , dutchmen to put in and make a new Teak sill (owners request ) and door jamb stock , which was VG Fir.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b299/PEG688/doorrepair.jpg

So I hope you go for it. I also hope you can post photos of the details .

In my shop right now I have two old doors I'll be rehanging soon , in old jambs , the existing ones , but I'll be cutting the doors down some and adding new adjustable sills and re cutting and kerfing for weather stripping.

So maybe along the way I'll take some photo of that as it happens, in the mean time you can order your stock and get that first milling done.

So I'm game if you are. :) Young fella ;)


Nice website BTW and work :cool:

The jamb in better shape than this one I hope ,

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b299/PEG688/June612.jpg

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b299/PEG688/June613.jpg

:eek:

[Paul Girouard]

The other issue is finding that good door man. Lots of doors get hung poorly , they work but they aren't really right. It's a rare carpenter that really hangs a door right. IMO , other's may have a different opinion. But I've seen really poorly hung doors in my days.

Good luck with what ever you decide.

[Brad Shipton]

Here is a pic of my interior one showing the joinery. You will see that mine is stave core construction and this is only an interior door. I made the tenons with a Dado head (Felder version) and that worked very well. The cope/stick tooling will cost you quite a few $$ if you want to use the shaper to make proper tenons, but you may want to consider the freud set to avoid that expense for only two doors. Maybe entering the Freud contest is something you might be interested in (see post here)?

Make darn sure the frame is solid. If you are nervous about the hanging, hire someone to prep the slab once you are done and hang them in place. Make sure to get approval from within for the door hardware. There are a ton of options if she goes searching and personally I like the door knob/lever set centered in the stile (2.375" backset = 4.75" rail; 2.75" backset = 5.5" rail for me anyway).

This job will try your patience, but its a lot of fun if you like this kind of stuff.

Good luck and keep us informed.

Bradhttp://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj176/Brad805/Passage%20Doors/DSC01769.jpg

[William OConnell]

Nice grain matching in the panels Brad:):)

[Frank Drew]

Stig,

Doormaking is pretty straightforward, especially if you have some good equipment.

Be sure to have a very flat setup for your final assembly and gluing; the door will only be as flat as it's glued up. Check with winding sticks and also check the diagonals to be sure everything's square.

Personally, I'd make the bottom rail wider than the top and mid rails, maybe 10-11" or so; the extra width of the tenons (they should be interrupted, as in Brad's photo, because a long mortise is a bit weak) will add some strength and a wider rail at the bottom simply looks better, I think.

I'm not sure I understand your proposed panel construction; do you mean to glue 1/4" veneers to a substrate?

[Neal Clayton]

at 36" from the bottom for the knob, whether you're pushing or pulling you're trying to flex the bottom rail. that's why they're wider, besides just looking better. that's where the stress is.

[Peter Quinn]

Anxious to know if you decided to build those doors, Stig? I hope you did, its great fun.

If you are still looking for tips, here are mine:

When you shop for wood, consider your stile material carefully. It can be challenging to flatten 8/4 material to 1 3/4" over 8'. You need to start with fairly flat stock to begin with or source 10/4 material, which will cost more but not so bad on one set of custom doors and much easier to flatten a few times. It doesn't take much twist or bow to make a board unusable for stiles.

Stiles often bow a bit as they sit after final milling. Always sight your stiles before shaping and orient any slight crown that has developed so that both stiles crown the same way. Obviously excessive crown would be a problem for a pair of doors, but a slight crown can usually be accommodated with careful orientation.

Buy some poplar or other cheap hard wood for test pieces, don't burn mahogany on set up pieces. Seems obvious but wasn't to me. I now make all my screw ups on cheap stock to keep the expensive stuff to a minimum. Of course there always seems to be a good use for surplus mahogany!:D You may need or want some extra stile material handy in case one gets funny during milling. I like to make up a test panel from cheaper stock; funny how well a small raised panel test piece fits in a test groove but the full sized panel wont fit in its opening!

Consider your shaper tooling. It pays to use good tooling, meaning you will pay a lot for it. Are your doors cope and mold or applied molding type? A good cope and mold set is expensive but a pleasure to use. I like Freeborn on LRH for entry doors, you can probably resell them if you are not going into the door business. Doors with bolection molding require less specific tooling but it helps to have a quality groover that wont tear out or climb cut the grooves if necessary.

I see some beautiful furniture on your site with large table tops so I assume you are able to process slabs effectively, which would describe the panels for a door that big. Without beating the point, consider that you must glue up and flatten 26" wide panels to make that door set, so access to a big planer and a wide belt wouldn't hurt. Of course if you are doing a veneer on plywood you may not have those needs.

Consider getting a helper for assembly. A 3'0"X8'0" door with three rails takes 8-9 heavy clamps to pull together. Add all that wood plus clamps and things get heavy quick. At some point you will need to flip that thing over to clean the squeeze out on the other side, and that really takes two people or a specialized bench that flips. You could fashion such a bench, but you will still need to lift the door to sand and detail it. Cumbersome at least.

Enjoy it if you decide to do it. Not really a complicated piece of woodworking, especially compared to the pieces in your gallery. Just takes a bit of muscle to glue it all together. A big dead blow helps too.

[Charlie Plesums]

.... I am playing with the idea of laminating book matched veneer (1/4) inch thick for the raised panels. I have a Laguna 24 inch band saw, ideal for re.sawing. ...

I haven't made entry doors so yield to the experts, but a veneer 1/4 inch thick set off my alarms. Wood 1/4 inch thick has strength and a mind of it's own, which may not include staying attached to the substrate. I consider a veneer 1/16 inch to be thick, and prefer thinner. Commercial veneer is often 1/42 inch thick. This leaves the appearance of the good wood, but takes away it's strength, so it stays stuck to the substrate, rather than having the strength to break free.

With a ho-hum blade and bandsaw, you should be able to resaw 1/8 inch thick, and sand out the ho-hum to 1/16 or less. The Laguna is not a ho hum saw - almost as good as my MM24 (yes I am poking at you :rolleyes:), and with a good blade I get a cut that needs so little sanding that I often start at 1/16 (.0625) off the saw - roughly as thin as the saw kerf.

[Brad Shipton]

Thks William.

Stig, I should have taken a look at your site like Peter. Great looking work, nothing for me to tell you. Only thing I would suggest if you go to Stave Core is get think about getting 1/8" veneer from Certainly Wood or another. They carry quite a few domestics in 1/8" and they always get the best stock. Personally, I would buy some solid stock and skip the hassle as Peter suggests. You can get commercially prepped staves too with face veneers as you specify.

Brad

[Stig Lundberg]

Gentlemen – thank you all very much.

After a board meeting around the dinner table last night we decided against me making the door. We met with a couple of companies located here in San Diego County, CA.
The decision is that we will purchase a fiberglass door. It is a double door, as described in my first post. The price of $10,800.00 includes manufacturing, installation of new jamb material and new hardware. The main reason for our decision is that half of the year the doors are baked by an unrelentingly hot sun. The fiberglass is totally maintenance free except some wax once or twice per year.

Like I said earlier, I have never built a door of that size and scope. I am certain that I will mess up somehow. That would brink about an inferior product. In addition I can instead concentrate on the type of wood working that I am good at and that I am comfortable with.
Having said all that, I feel a little bit like a traitor to the “guild”. A good friend of mine called me a chicken while clucking like one. That hurts.

Anyway, there will be more colorful stories in the future.
All the best.
Stig Lundberg Valley Center, California
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/images/icons/icon11.gif

www.furniturecrafter.biz (http://www.furniturecrafter.biz)

Like I said, i better concentrate on stuff that i can lift myself.
This table is the latest in a series of tops made from blood wood. A very hard and small pore wood.

[Brad Shipton]

I sure wouldnt call you a traitor. Sure would be nice to see some of your work in progress. Thats an amazing looking table top.

Brad

[Peter Quinn]

Think of all the additional time you will have to produce the furniture you love and make so well! Bravo for considering it and having the courage to make the best decision for you.

I make doors for a living presently, mostly simple stuff crosses my bench, though I have seen the senior door makers build some massive entryways, and have had the displeasure of helping to lift or move some of them. I have looked a some fiberglass units at a trade show built to approximate mahogany, and they were so close to the real thing it was amazing. Not a bad choice. Some of the other species like oak didn't render as well, but they have the mahogany look down in a very beautiful and convincing manor. I may get one myself some day.

Perhaps your friend who called you a chicken would like to make the doors for you, then maintain them for you for the rest of his life?:D

[Stig Lundberg]

Thanks guys, all that makes me feel a bit better.
Still, the "chicken guy" is still my friend. He is a good egg.

Stig.