Interior door construction

[Larry Edgerton]

1 3/4 Doors on my house, ash. I do a lot f custom doors and most interior doors are 1 3/4" unless they are replacements for existing. Have done a lot of doors out of Tulip, no problems. I do a base coat of thinned west system on poplar doors to toughen the surface before primer.

I do disagree that you need bearing hinges. You need better than the box store junk for sure, and I have great success with cast iron hinges from Renovators. They work like magic, never have wear issues and are WAY better looking.

[David Zaret]

1 3/4 Doors on my house, ash. I do a lot f custom doors and most interior doors are 1 3/4" unless they are replacements for existing. Have done a lot of doors out of Tulip, no problems. I do a base coat of thinned west system on poplar doors to toughen the surface before primer.

I do disagree that you need bearing hinges. You need better than the box store junk for sure, and I have great success with cast iron hinges from Renovators. They work like magic, never have wear issues and are WAY better looking.

tightening up the poplar with epoxy is a great idea. how do you thin the epoxy for this application - acetone?

[David Kumm]

Good to hear from you Larry, still got the big shaper?

I'm tempted to try the TS at least for the wide rails on a 6 panel door. Stiles stay pretty stable unless you fit the door tight in the summer which is a different issue. Would anyone estimate the extra work vs the cost of solid wood assuming non exotic stuff like Cherry, maple, walnut etc. Dave

[John TenEyck]

Good to hear from you Larry, still got the big shaper?

I'm tempted to try the TS at least for the wide rails on a 6 panel door. Stiles stay pretty stable unless you fit the door tight in the summer which is a different issue. Would anyone estimate the extra work vs the cost of solid wood assuming non exotic stuff like Cherry, maple, walnut etc. Dave

For me the cost of solid wood is nothing compared to how much time it takes to make a stave or LVL / veneered door. Most of the doors I've made are stave core/veneered, both interior and exterior so I'm pretty efficient at the process, which is very similar to what DZ described. It has to take me at least 5 or 6 more labor hours to make a stave core/veneered door. In addition, you have the WIP time waiting for the glue to cure in the vacuum bag. Great doors, which is why I make them that way, but it's a time sucker for me.

FWIW, be careful using LVL cores for an exterior door. I had the veneer split on one wide bottom rail on the exterior side. The veneer wanted to shrink but the core wouldn't let it so it split. After that learning lesson I only use stave core or solid wood for exterior door rails.

John

[David Kumm]

I'm curious as to the benefit of the extra time. I understand that certain wood, or certain designs benefit greatly from the stave, TS, type of construction. More traditional doors with panels and center stiles don't seem to me to be worth the effort. My raised panels are 1.5" thick with 1/2" tongues and I would think a 3/4" or greater flat panel would have even more structure to it. I'm not second guessing, just want to know if there are benefits I'm not seeing. Dave

[Joe Calhoon]

Lot of acceptable ways to build interior doors. 1.75” is the way to go for a custom interior. Sometimes thicker on tall and wide. I prefer to go solid wood whenever I can get good material. 2 piece lamination is a bad idea. Did some of that early on...
I mostly use real wood stave cores when I need stability or grain matching and working with unstable material. Rails I Mostly use solid wood. LVL or timber strand is a bad idea for any wide rail unless you use very thin face veneer. With walnut and cherry sometimes a stave core allows for getting rid of sapwood. Generally though I prefer well seasoned and well faced solid wood.

We used timberstrand on a few interior projects and did not care for it. Hard maple and VG fir are 2 species I would not put on timberstrand.
Timber strand is easier to build compared to solid wood for engineered stiles but I have a dislike for man made materials in my doors. A lot of companies are successful using it though. I occasionally use LVL for exterior door stiles when working with difficult materials like barn wood.

[David Zaret]

john - i agree with you it's a time sucker, for sure. the reason i switched from solid wood to LVL was movement. i built 10 or so doors, carefully selected stock, did careful glue ups... and yet, i'd say on half of them, they moved, even a little. 1/16" of bow along a stile is enough to annoy me. for my interior LVL core doors, i'm yet to see anything move a hair. more work, for sure. good info on the exterior use, thanks for that.

joe -- a while back, you gave jim biddle a sample of a stave core product you use... i don't know where you get it, or what it is, but if i could buy that stuff, i would do it in place of the timberstrand. it's simply not a product i've ever seen. LVL is, generally speaking, a poor compromise to a commercial solid stave core... i simply don't know where to find such a thing.

--- dz

[Mel Fulks]

Have to disagree on 1 and 3/4. It’s okay in some places ,I think it depends on the situation . Right now a lot of clunky ,everything must
be asymmetrical stuff is the style. So fat doors are are okay. Jefferson’s old house has doors 1and 1/4 on inside. Been there a long time .
But that’s a house where anything fat ...never had a chance !

[Joe Calhoon]

Very true in historical work Mel. Years ago we did a new house that was a exact shaker reproduction. The architect was associated with one of the Shaker villages. The interior doors were all called out at 1 1/8”. And exterior at 1 1/2”.

[Joe Calhoon]

joe -- a while back, you gave jim biddle a sample of a stave core product you use... i don't know where you get it, or what it is, but if i could buy that stuff, i would do it in place of the timberstrand. it's simply not a product i've ever seen. LVL is, generally speaking, a poor compromise to a commercial solid stave core... i simply don't know where to find such a thing.

--- dz

Dave, look at the barn wood core. It’s a LVL designed for doors with vertical grain and supposedly drier than construction LVL. It comes in 36”X 98” sheets in two thickness. I get it from National Wood Products. They are tight lipped about the product name. I think it comes from the Northwest. It’s straight, I usually just band it, flush trim and abrasive plane before gluing the skins on.

[Joe Calhoon]

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here is the picture, couldn’t insert it in the other post for some reason

[Brad Shipton]

If you have access to a glulam supplier that makes for a nice core as well. A bit lighter too. Joe has shown off some BauBuche before as well. That would be great, but not easy to find.

Was it easy to find hardware for those 1" passage doors or was that custom as well?

[Mel Fulks]

Joe ,I remember one really large job where I actually changed the couple’s choice. All the doors were spect. 1 and 3/4 “ , I told them it was
too thick for inside. They said the architect was afraid we couldn’t make them all straight enough. Told them to bring any 1 and 3/8ths doors
back that that were not straight enough ,and I would stop whatever I was doing and replace it. And I was just an employee !

[Jared Sankovich]

Count me in the thicker door is better camp. I prefer 1.75 interior doors. I also prefer 1.125" cabinet doors.

[William Hodge]

I make solid wood through mortise and tenon doors. I copy existing for old buildings. Custom cope and stick and custom panel profiles are typical. I built my first door in 1985.

Poplar works well for interior doors. Knowing the wood in its rough state, and being able to pick good wood for stiles, is crucial. Being able to see the finished product in a rough board makes pulling stock easier. Go for the stiles first, cut the bad ones up for rails. Never make the top rails and mid stiles wider than the stiles. The bad stiles have to go somewhere.

Wood will move, wood will check, wood is wood. Planning for movement and accepting wood as a variable raw material makes it easier to accept a product that looks like wood, a variable raw material.

A full or partially plastic door will be more appealing, just like a laminate floor will look perfect, compared to a wood floor. Wood grain plastic laminate table tops will never check. 4' x 8' sheets of wood grain paneling were a familiar feature of 1970' rec rooms. You need to decide whether you want a plastic door or a wooden door.