First Time Building Carriage Doors - Advice

[michael dilday]

I am going to build a set of carriage doors for my daughters' garage. It currently has a single roll up garage door about 7 foot wide so each door will be about 42" wide and 7' tall. I attached a photo of her front door which we are going to make it look like except the radius will only be half at the top of each door on the outside. I am planning on using 2x8 treated ripped to 7 ish to make the width with 6 boards. Also will have the window like the photo in each door. I am going to build a jamb and it will have a threshold. Also it will have a deadbolt and handle set like the photo. I am going to build a flat box to make sure it is perfectly flat.

Questions:

How should I join the boards? Dowels? Does glue hold well on treated lumber?

For the windows I assume some kind of molding?

I am going to prime it and paint it to match the front door. How long do I wait before priming treated lumber?

Do I worry about warping with treated lumber?

Thanks for your help.

[Wayne Lomman]

Where I am from, that style of door is always tongue and groove boards on battens in a 'Z' pattern on the back. Prime everything, assemble it and then final painting. The window is uncommon but will work if fitted as a separate assembly into the door. Always assume that treated timber is wet and will move a lot. Buy it early and let it dry for some time, preferably months, before using it. Cheers

[michael dilday]

Very good info Wayne. Yes the tongue & groove & battens make a lot of sense. Thanks a lot.

[james glenn]

I use Gorilla Glue for pressure treated due to it being so wet and it takes a long time to dry. The Gorilla Glue allows for use on damp wood. I would purchase the best lumber you can (i.e. straight, knot free, good grain pattern) and sticker it with weight to dry for a while. It always seems to twist or bow as it dries if not done properly.

I have had good luck building with the gluing above and still damp wood to avoid drying issues. Once the project was assembled it negated most of the issues.

[Lee Schierer]

When building a garage door you need insure water will run off all outside surfaces. There should be no flat spots where water will stand. I made a 10' x 8' door for our storage barn. I used treated lumber with mortise and tenon joints for all the pieces. I also used polyurethane glue as it is water proof. Use treated lumber as it will last longer, but you will need to weight, stack and sticker it for a month or more to let it dry out to minimize warps and twists.
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When you get each panel built weigh it using your bathroom scale and record the weight so you can determine the correct door springs to use if it is an over head door.

[John Isgren]

I second that if using pressure treated lumber you will need to buy it now and sticker it to dry for as long as you can before cutting any joinery on it! That stuff is very wet. Speaking from experience, I made a barn door from 1x8 treated pine and a month later there is 1”+ gaps between the boards, broke the glue joints and pulled out the pocket screws!

Also when it dries you may not be able to get 7” width out of it.

[Warren Wilson]

+1 on stickering treated lumber.

I recently built a gate using “tanatone” treated 1x6s (the brown stuff). It was nice material to work with — mostly knot-free with no checks. But after only two weeks of sitting in the shade each board shrunk a good 1/4”. In this application it didn’t matter, but it could be a problem with other designs.

Talking to the guys in the yard about it they told me the manfacturer wets the wood before wrapping the bundles in plastic so that it maintains dimension until it is sold. It certainly was wet in the piles.