Stave core door glue for 1/4" veneer?

[Mark Bolton]

I'm in agreement about any pva. Run.

[John TenEyck]

I've made a few exterior stave core doors. I used TB2 to glue up the stave cores. I used 1/4" QS Sapele on some of them and 1/4" rift sawn white oak on some others, and glued them to the cores with Weldwood PRG. If you can't apply a lot of pressure, however, I would use epoxy. FWIW, the Germans use 7 mm skins on many of their exterior doors, which gave me confidence 1/4" would be OK. If you make the cores and skins from the same wood or from woods with similar seasonal expansion/contraction, with the same grain orientation, they will move together. In any case, I have had no trouble with doors that face N or are completely shielded from sun exposure. I did have trouble with one door that faced S and had a storm door over it, not surprisingly. The 12" wide bottom rail veneer split. I replaced the bottom rail (not easy), vented the storm door, and had 3M reflective film applied to the storm door and have had no further troubles with it.

John