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Thread: Screen Door Joinery

  1. #1
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    Screen Door Joinery

    I am making two screen doors out of Sapele for patio doors that are subject to serious rain--no overhang at back of house. The basic design is 1" x 3 1/2" styles and 3 1/2" rails, except that the lower part of the door contains a 5/16" x 12" panel, (edge-glued) bounded at the top by a 3 1/2" rail and at the bottom by an 8" wide rail. My question involves the joinery for the 8" rail. This is where my old screen doors have failed, although they admittedly lasted a long time. I'm concerned about wood movement. Should I cut that tenon into three 2 1/2" wide and 3/4" long tenons and only glue and pin the center tenon or can I just use a 7" tenon and glue the whole thing, which is how the original was made?
    Last edited by Jan Bianchi; 12-04-2012 at 2:54 PM. Reason: better description

  2. #2
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    I would break the tenon up in section two or three depends on the wood grain.The bottom rail holds the weight of the door.So 3/4 long tenons may be too short.I would cover them with glue helps keep water out of the joint.I use gorilla glue on gates that I get to build.Hope this helps Andrew

  3. #3
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    I'd do what Andrew said but use epoxy. Some thing like West System. I've worked on a Sapele hand rail & they glued end grain to long grain and the Gorilla did nothing....It did not bond.

  4. #4
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    I planned to use epoxy. What length of tenon would you recommend? Is 1" long enough?

  5. #5
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    I think I'd make them longer...maybe 2-2 1/2''....I tend to over build.....on some interior door I made them 4"......I made a fast screen door for my porch & used the Festool Domino which does a floating tenon that's 1'' into both stile & rail....that's not much but has held up for 4 yrs with no finish on the door.The door is Mahogany. I used epoxy...

  6. #6
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    I'd make the tenons 2/3's the width of the stiles, or around 2 3/8" give or take. It might survive with less, but if you are going to bother to set up to make mortises and tenons, why not go the full monty? I'd split it up to 2 tenons around 3" each, come up at least 1" from the bottom of the door for strength, you can leave a haunch to avoid making a stopped panel groove, leave a 1/2" space between tenons, or a bit more if you like, 1/2" panel groove, that pretty much takes up your 8". Epoxy is not necessary, though you can certainly use it if you prefer. Tite bond III works fine for sapele or mahogany.

    Most likely start of failure is the panel groove in the top of the bottom rail. Water drips down the panel, goes into the groove, sits, dries out eventually....cycle continues. Well, maybe in Seattle it never actually dries out, but you get the idea. I've seen design's that hold the panel in with a panel mold from the outside, and leave some weep space on the bottom edge of the bottom piece of molding to let things drain and dry out. Might help? Trickier to render for sure, but you should be thinking drainage plane like a window sash. Where is the water going, and how will it get out?

  7. #7
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    Jan,

    I'd definitely divide the tenon up so that you don't have one long mortise, which would be weak; I'd haunch both ends of the tenons plus the middle portion, so that daylight won't shine through if there's a bit of movement. And I'm with the longer is better camp when it comes to tenons.

  8. #8
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    Jan,

    You have great advise so far! I'll second Peter's suggestion to direct the water with some sort of drainage plane. I can add to the discussion my own experience with a really fun project earlier this year. I was commissioned to build a reproduction of a screen door for a house built in 1876. In the reproduction door I used through tenons which were draw-bore pegged, I didn't use glue at all! But this door was hung under a porch so water wasn't a huge concern.
    If I was in your shoes I think I might go whole-hog and build some sort of overhand above the doors to shelter them from the rain.....you are in Seattle after all!! Of course it's easy to advise someone to (likely) quadruple their budget!

  9. #9
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    One other technique you might consider -- bevel the outdoor side top edges of the lower rails, so that they will tend to shed water rather than being ledges where water can sit (then cause trouble).

  10. #10
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    I like the idea of dealing with the drainage. Think I'll at least bevel the top edges of the lower rail so water can't sit there as Frank suggested below.

    By the way, we had a record of something like 80 days this summer with only about 15 minutes of rain. Global Warming gets us all, some come out better than others though.

  11. #11
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    I'm goingto do this. Thanks for the suggestion.

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