Carriage Door Construction

[Dick Sylvan]

I am planning on building a pair of "Carriage style" doors for the entrance to my workshop. Each door will be about 7 feet tall and 4 feet wide , so they are larger than a typical entry door. As a result, while the construction approach would be the same as an entry door, there are likely to be some special requirement in terms of size of loose tenons, door thickness, rail and style dimensions, etc. I have searched the Internet and looked at all thw WW books on the subject that I have found, but have seen no mention of construction details for Carriage doors. Does anybody know of a source for such info. There are several companies that make custom carriage doors, but they, for obvious reasons, don't seem to want to share any info. Thanks for any help available.

[Bob Wingard]

I made some doors for the basement of my new shop, and used the Freud Entry/Passage Door bitset. I wanted a bit more strength, so I routed some deep mortises at all the joints using John Nixon's method (www.eaglelakewoodworking.com). After all was said & done, I wanted yet a bit more strength, so I glued & screwed a piece of 1/4" MDF to the backs of them. Very heavy .. very solid .. NOT too hard to make using loose tenons.




<<<__ Bøb __>>>

[Neal Clayton]

off the top of my head, and i haven't had a need to build doors this large mind you, there are two main engineering issues to consider. the hinges being strong enough to hold up over time, and the rails being strong enough to resist flex.

general properties of doors as they pertain to this example...

as for the design of the door and flex...if you plan to make them out of solid wood in the traditional way, i would have at least 5 rails. the typical molded profile on a door is 1/2" deep, so subtracting 1/2 from each side, what's left is the width of the tenon and the panel groove. so a 2" door will leave you a 1" wide tenon, a 1 3/4" door will leave you a 3/4" tenon. the more rails you have, the more mortise joints you have, thus the more the door will resist flex.

the general rule of thumb is for tenons to go halfway through your stiles. i see no need to deviate from that here.

the bottom rail should be roughly twice the width of the other rails, on that i also see no need to deviate from that general rule. you want it to be bottom heavy, and stronger at the bottom, since the generally accepted height for the knob or handle is 3 feet, which is biased toward the bottom.

a split panel design would add additional strength to the rails, by providing an additional mortise joint in each rail that will further resist flex. see this old pocket door as an example, which is the closest thing to what you're attempting as far as extreme (and larger, even) dimensions go...

http://s93883215.onlinehome.us/adamj...041-783695.jpg

as for the hinges, if you use typical mortise hinges, i'd do three 6" hinges on each door. this will be quite heavy. going by what i've done before, on a 2" thick exterior door 80x36, using old growth yellow pine which is roughly 3 pounds per square foot, three 5" hinges is borderline strong enough. your doors being larger, more is called for. if you go with strap hinges or gate hinges or other such things, i'm not really sure there, like i said i don't build those types of thing so don't have alot of experience with such hinges. you will also need additional reinforcement between the frame and the studs to keep the frame stable. i'd splice a horizontal support in behind each hinge between the first and second studs in addition to the top.

if these will be exposed to the elements, i'd use flat panels, no end grain exposure on the panels that way. on an interior door you can use plywood panels to add some extra strength if you go with flat panels, but i wouldn't use plywood on an outside door, i'm sure you've seen what happens to plywood left in the rain.


with all of that in mind, i'd do something like this...the dimensions on the below are 2" thick, 5" wide rails/stiles, a 10" bottom rail, and 10" wide panels. of course you can dress up the glass area however you like, or eliminate it altogether even, that's personal preference. the framing example is obviously not the proper scale, but assuming you had a rough opening for this set of doors to go into, the below is how i'd frame it to make sure you had the support for the weight of the doors in question. i personally prefer 3" deck screws rather than nails for such framing, but framing nails would be fine as well.

and this is all probably overkill, i'm no structural engineer (although i'm sure there are probably a few here who can provide more accurate minimums...), as far as the necessary hinges and framing methods, i just go by what i've seen stand up for over 100 years and duplicate that plus a little more for good measure .

[Peter Quinn]

We make doors that big all the time at work, not really a problem, no special issues involved. Choose a good exterior wood. Make the tennons 2/3 the width of the styles, make the styles at least 1 3/4" thick and at least 5" wide excluding any molding profile, include at least one center style such as in a four or six panel design if using solid wood panels. Panels can be made single sided to cut weight if you don't mind flat panels to the inside. More styles equals more strength and rigidity. Design with at least 3 rails in mind. Use four hinges per door adequately sized to handle the finished weight load of your doors, and build the jamb from 5/4 or 6/4 stock. Make sure the shear walls of your garage can handle the weight load too. Proper framing and blocking is essential. It is often the garage that gives up before the door causing things to rack badly!

We usually bevel the top exterior facing edge of each rail except the top rail to shed water and cover this with a panel mold, so water is not trapped in a panel groove where it will eventually shorten the door's life. In fact every large exterior door I have seen leave the shop is made this way for that reason, always bolection molding, never cope and stick.

I made a fast and dirty set for my garage, 4'6" wide each, using spruce for rails and styles, T-111 for the panels. I used two styles, three rails, and glued the panels into the groove with polyurethane glue. If you use an exterior grade or marine grade plywood you can glue it in, use less styles, and it creates an incredibly strong yet light door. Think of I joists, you get the idea. Good luck.

[Neal Clayton]

in addition to bolection molding being a good practice as peter recommended, if you do have glass in the doors, i would glaze them with putty like a traditional window as well if the door is to be painted on the outside.

wood strips are fine for awhile, but will eventually move and pull loose from their small nails with moisture exposure. glazing putty will stay sealed even to the point of the exterior putty completely failing, and only the points and bed putty holding the glass in place. it's doubtful you'll own the door long enough to see the end of that cycle of deterioration.

[Peter Scoma]

I actually began construction of my carraige shop doors this morning, starting to dimension the stock and square everything up. I purchased the freud entry door set which comes with a small DVD that explains a bit about door construction. I'm telling myself that it isnt much more difficult than a standard cabinet door panel, just on a grander scale. I echo all of the advise above. My only concern is that despite deep M&T's the door will rack due to the sheer weight of it. I dont think it will happen, it just crosses my mind when I'm handling such heavy stock (8/4 poplar). My jambs are sistered, pressure treated 2x6's that have been sitting for about 30 years from when my parents built their home. I have them legged (7x1/2)into 4x4 posts that frame out my garage opening which are held into the concrete with 7+in expansion bolts. I would have hung the doors on the 4x4's but the entire opening is terribly out of square. I was able to shim my jambs with galv washers to give me a clean opening. What materials are you all using for your doors??

PS

[fRED mCnEILL]

In the January 2005 issue of Fine Homebuilding there is an article on how to build doors like this. In fact, in the article, he does carriage doors but they are exterior.

Basically he builds the doors in 3 layers. The 2 outer layers are identical but the middle layer overlaps the outler layers creating LARGE mortise and tenon joints.The outer layers are assembled with pocket hole screws.

I have built 2 large heavy gates (7 feet wide) in this manner and they have stood up well for 4 years in our rainy west coast climate.

Over the winter I also built an exterior door for my daughter's turn of the century home (it had to match the original doors) and it turned out great.

Its ptretty straight forward and STRONG. You probably want to use 4 hinges on each door.

Fred Mc.

[Dick Sylvan]

Neal,
Thanks very much for your response. It is very helpful! BTW, I am going to use 3 30 inch strap hinges, as this is the visual choice that the LOML wants. I am told by the manufacturer in Philadelphia that those will be adequate for the doors.

[Neal Clayton]

also, the following page has the weights of common wood species both wet and dry..

http://www.ces.purdue.edu/extmedia/FNR/FNR-109.html

in cubic feet so just divide by 12 for board feet. should give you a pretty good estimate of the final weight of the door.

[Tom Godley]

I have two sets of typical carriage doors in a carport - each is over 7' tall but the two doors are about 90 inches wide together. They have been installed for over 50 years so I know that they work - I have used this same design for other doors.


They use tongue and groove pine boards for the door with three additional boards used inside horizontally at the hinge points and one more vertically at the center for the lock. On the outside when the doors are closed you get an x pattern from boards installed on the face - with two additional boards installed at the upper and lower hinge locations. This design was installed on garages all over the east coast -- they are easy to make and I think very good looking-- mine also use three strap hinges.


My shop has two insulated doors each 4'x8' in size (8x8 opening) and about 5" thick that I did not make -- but like. The previous owner took a 1/2" sheet of exterior plywood and attached 2x4 lumber, making a frame around the plywood. He then added more 2x's in the middle each way -- then filled these four spaces with foam panels and attached a sheet of 1/4" plywood for the outside. He then added fake battens to the outside for looks only. The doors have been installed for about 13 years and have held up in the weather. They use three typical 5" inch door hinges (not even ball bearing!) set into the 2x door and frame - I would not have thought that this would have worked but it has.


I spent a lot of money one time on a custom garage door with style and rails -- never again. I had too much wood movement and the door was a maintenance nightmare. I think it has to do with all the second and third growth wood available. I like the three layer design for stability and ease of construction.

[Joe Scharle]

I built mine following examples from the early 1800s. Crossbucked and nailed. Each of the large doors is about 200# and the hinges had to be made at forge. Just another idea for you.

[michael dilday]

off the top of my head, and i haven't had a need to build doors this large mind you, there are two main engineering issues to consider. the hinges being strong enough to hold up over time, and the rails being strong enough to resist flex.

general properties of doors as they pertain to this example...

as for the design of the door and flex...if you plan to make them out of solid wood in the traditional way, i would have at least 5 rails. the typical molded profile on a door is 1/2" deep, so subtracting 1/2 from each side, what's left is the width of the tenon and the panel groove. so a 2" door will leave you a 1" wide tenon, a 1 3/4" door will leave you a 3/4" tenon. the more rails you have, the more mortise joints you have, thus the more the door will resist flex.

the general rule of thumb is for tenons to go halfway through your stiles. i see no need to deviate from that here.

the bottom rail should be roughly twice the width of the other rails, on that i also see no need to deviate from that general rule. you want it to be bottom heavy, and stronger at the bottom, since the generally accepted height for the knob or handle is 3 feet, which is biased toward the bottom.

a split panel design would add additional strength to the rails, by providing an additional mortise joint in each rail that will further resist flex. see this old pocket door as an example, which is the closest thing to what you're attempting as far as extreme (and larger, even) dimensions go...

http://s93883215.onlinehome.us/adamj...041-783695.jpg

as for the hinges, if you use typical mortise hinges, i'd do three 6" hinges on each door. this will be quite heavy. going by what i've done before, on a 2" thick exterior door 80x36, using old growth yellow pine which is roughly 3 pounds per square foot, three 5" hinges is borderline strong enough. your doors being larger, more is called for. if you go with strap hinges or gate hinges or other such things, i'm not really sure there, like i said i don't build those types of thing so don't have alot of experience with such hinges. you will also need additional reinforcement between the frame and the studs to keep the frame stable. i'd splice a horizontal support in behind each hinge between the first and second studs in addition to the top.

if these will be exposed to the elements, i'd use flat panels, no end grain exposure on the panels that way. on an interior door you can use plywood panels to add some extra strength if you go with flat panels, but i wouldn't use plywood on an outside door, i'm sure you've seen what happens to plywood left in the rain.


with all of that in mind, i'd do something like this...the dimensions on the below are 2" thick, 5" wide rails/stiles, a 10" bottom rail, and 10" wide panels. of course you can dress up the glass area however you like, or eliminate it altogether even, that's personal preference. the framing example is obviously not the proper scale, but assuming you had a rough opening for this set of doors to go into, the below is how i'd frame it to make sure you had the support for the weight of the doors in question. i personally prefer 3" deck screws rather than nails for such framing, but framing nails would be fine as well.

and this is all probably overkill, i'm no structural engineer (although i'm sure there are probably a few here who can provide more accurate minimums...), as far as the necessary hinges and framing methods, i just go by what i've seen stand up for over 100 years and duplicate that plus a little more for good measure .

What do you mean by "molded profile"? I have never heard that term before. Thanks.

[michael dilday]

We make doors that big all the time at work, not really a problem, no special issues involved. Choose a good exterior wood. Make the tennons 2/3 the width of the styles, make the styles at least 1 3/4" thick and at least 5" wide excluding any molding profile, include at least one center style such as in a four or six panel design if using solid wood panels. Panels can be made single sided to cut weight if you don't mind flat panels to the inside. More styles equals more strength and rigidity. Design with at least 3 rails in mind. Use four hinges per door adequately sized to handle the finished weight load of your doors, and build the jamb from 5/4 or 6/4 stock. Make sure the shear walls of your garage can handle the weight load too. Proper framing and blocking is essential. It is often the garage that gives up before the door causing things to rack badly!

We usually bevel the top exterior facing edge of each rail except the top rail to shed water and cover this with a panel mold, so water is not trapped in a panel groove where it will eventually shorten the door's life. In fact every large exterior door I have seen leave the shop is made this way for that reason, always bolection molding, never cope and stick.

I made a fast and dirty set for my garage, 4'6" wide each, using spruce for rails and styles, T-111 for the panels. I used two styles, three rails, and glued the panels into the groove with polyurethane glue. If you use an exterior grade or marine grade plywood you can glue it in, use less styles, and it creates an incredibly strong yet light door. Think of I joists, you get the idea. Good luck.

What kind of exterior wood do you recommend? I guess for 1 3/4 thick I would purchase 8/4 and joint/plane down to 1 3/4? My door is not going to have rails and stiles. It is going to be 6 boards vertical with a tongue & groove joint. I was thinking of about a 6" treated board on there bottom horizontal to resist bottom rot. The top will be rounded on one side corner and I was planning on end grain on the top.

[michael dilday]

Thanks everyone for your responses. A lot of good info. This will definitely help me get started right.

[Jon Snider]

I’m going to assume the new poster is building a new door, realizing this is an old resurrected thread.

I built two 8’x4.5’ doors, 3.5” thick using a modified version of a more recent article in FWW for carriage doors. I used LSL studs for the frame, skinned on each side with plywood with foam insulation inside. Then trimmed both interior and exterior surfaces with preferred style of rails and stiles with a single diagonal. Used large strap hinges from Richards-Wilcox.