Big Doors with Domino XL--upper limit?

[SitkaZach]

Hello All,

I'm looking for guidelines on designing big doors with Domino XL loose tenons.

I've built standard sized 3 rail exterior doors--but the next project is huge: two pairs of doors about about 5 feet wide X 8 feet tall. Any design or build advice is greatly appreciated.

I'm thinking to build in VG Alaska yellow cedar from my local sawmill, minimum 3" thick, maybe up to 4".

Big ball bearing hinges are available, but I'm also considering very heavy duty pivot hinges that attach directly into the upper and lower rails and allow full swing in or out of the building.

Any advice, even on proportioning such big doors, is much appreciated. I've reviewed all sorts of old books, info online, and largely struck out.

Thank you,
Zach

 

[Michael Kellough]

Not qualified to provide guidance but to get the ball rolling I’d say the more rails and the taller they are the better to resist gravity and reduce the strain on the tenoned joints over the years. Given the squat proportions of 5x8 maybe go full fortress and have five rails, resulting in eight panels. Maybe make the stiles wider to keep the panels square?

I’ve only handled a small sample of Alaskan yellow cedar. It was a beautiful fine grained sample but quite heavy. These will be monster-on-steroid doors!

I’m with you on the pivot hinges.

 

[tjbnwi]

With the thickness you’re mentioning, start at the threshold. What material (I recommend RSWO), what sweep, how are you going to seal, door/threshold gap against weather?

If you use pivot hinges, the door 3” thick will consume about 4-1/2” of the jamb opening/clear space.

Hardware/locksets will need special spindles.

You may need to fabricate your own pivots for the size doors you mention.

The XL will have no problem with the joinery on this door.

You can view various pivot door styles here;

Pivot Door Company - Order Premium Pivot Doors Online

Pivot Door Company manufactures premium wood pivot doors for exterior and interior use. Our modern, hand-crafted designs are custom-made.

www.pivotdoorcompany.com

Tom

 

[luvmytoolz]

That's basically a Cypress!

I don't know if Domino tenons would do for the size you're planning, rough calc is it'll weigh around 135kg each door.

Even the 140 x 14 tenons don't seem beefy enough, or able to be inserted deep enough to give good strength here?

 

[smorgasbord]

Could double-stack the 14x140s.
Thick doors will require more clearance away from the swing.
My front door is 42" wide by 90" tall, 2" thick of Narra, with 4 Soss hinges and has been fine for decades.

 

[luvmytoolz]

Could double-stack the 14x140s.
Thick doors will require more clearance away from the swing.
My front door is 42" wide by 90" tall, 2" thick of Narra, with 4 Soss hinges and has been fine for decades.

How were they constructed?

 

[Cheese]

Here are a couple of pages from a Festool tutorial on building doors. This may be of some value.

 

[SitkaZach]

...I’d say the more rails and the taller they are the better to resist gravity and reduce the strain on the tenoned joints over the years. Given the squat proportions of 5x8 maybe go full fortress and have five rails, resulting in eight panels. Maybe make the stiles wider to keep the panels square?

Excellent advice, I like the idea of more rails. Thank you, Michael. I've considered using 1/2" plywood panel in a dado, glued on two sides, one on the style and one on the upper rail to provide a sort of shelf bracket effect, and allow the other two sides to move. I'd cover the plywood with yellow cedar. But maybe the same thing could be accomplished without plywood, just yellow cedar panels. I'll have to really think deep about wood movement, and might talk myself right out of glue on any edge of a panel.

Also, yellow cedar once dry can be pretty light. I figure about two pounds per board foot, roughly. It's one of the strongest woods for weight, and is pretty low on movement, even compared to other softwoods.

 

[SitkaZach]

With the thickness you’re mentioning, start at the threshold. What material (I recommend RSWO), what sweep, how are you going to seal, door/threshold gap against weather?

If you use pivot hinges, the door 3” thick will consume about 4-1/2” of the jamb opening/clear space.

Hardware/locksets will need special spindles.

You may need to fabricate your own pivots for the size doors you mention.

The XL will have no problem with the joinery on this door.

You can view various pivot door styles here;

Pivot Door Company - Order Premium Pivot Doors Online

Pivot Door Company manufactures premium wood pivot doors for exterior and interior use. Our modern, hand-crafted designs are custom-made.

www.pivotdoorcompany.com

Tom

Thank you Tom. All excellent suggestions. You're absolutely right, work up from the threashold.

I hadn't considered oak, but that's a great idea. I'll consider wood movement, and moisture resistance.

There's some pretty good German weatherseal, Athmer, that is recommended with the premium pivot hinges by Fritsjurgens. I'm still working on a budget for customer...these hinges aren't cheap, but they are clearly among the best.

 

[SitkaZach]

That's basically a Cypress!

I don't know if Domino tenons would do for the size you're planning, rough calc is it'll weigh around 135kg each door.

Even the 140 x 14 tenons don't seem beefy enough, or able to be inserted deep enough to give good strength here?

Yes! Alaska yellow cedar is in the cypress family, but I've barely worked with anything else holding the cypress name.

Good estimate on weight. I figured with a big triple pane window at the top, maximum weight of around 400 pounds, or almost 200 kg.

And yes! The biggest tenons seem a little short to me too. I wonder about using a pattern bit in a router to deepen the tenons, or perhaps a drill bit of the same size and chisel out...but too much fiddling and I might as well go traditional joinery. I'll do some tests to see about the ease and accuracy of lengthening the tenons.

I need to really get a feel for the different stress of a pivot hinge in a door, which to me does not seem intuitive. Once I settle on a design, I'm thinking to draw out to scale, and build a quick to scale model with dowels for a pivot hinge, and force the mini door to fail. Well...a lot of figuring still to go.

 

[SitkaZach]

Could double-stack the 14x140s.
Thick doors will require more clearance away from the swing.
My front door is 42" wide by 90" tall, 2" thick of Narra, with 4 Soss hinges and has been fine for decades.

Thank you. I'm with you on double stacking dominoes. You make me think I should mock up some joinery soon in scrap and maybe even pull out a hydraulic jack to bust the joints.

That's great, decades of use is a testament. Those Soss hinges look solid.

Can't say I've ever used narra, or even run across it in boatbuilding, but it sounds like great wood.

 

[smorgasbord]

How were they constructed?

This was last century, so the old-fashioned way - custom-ground router bit so I could create a tenon on the rails while preserving the glass reveal profile, and router with 4" long bit to cut the almost 3" deep mortises (I forget the thickness, but well over ½" thick).

 

[smorgasbord]

I'm with you on double stacking dominoes. You make me think I should mock up some joinery soon in scrap and maybe even pull out a hydraulic jack to bust the joints.

Just to be clear, my door was not built with dominos. But the 140mm long dominos get you 70mm of depth and that was about the depth of my mortises.

In addition to double-stacking width-wise, you can double-stack across the rail's width. Or even make your own wider dominos and double-stack those width-wise. Lots of good options here - the real issue is going to be hinge-ing and lock side clearance and strength of the door jamb itself.

 

[Mike Goetzke]

I made one entrance door - for our house. I was lucky a door builder on another forum took my hand and mentored me on how to make it. One thing that took a bit for me to get over was to make the door rails/stiles with hardwood veneered LVL. Door has been up 15 years now without any issues.

 

[SitkaZach]

I made one entrance door - for our house. I was lucky a door builder on another forum took my hand and mentored me on how to make it. One thing that took a bit for me to get over was to make the door rails/stiles with hardwood veneered LVL. Door has been up 15 years now without any issues.

LVL is a pretty good idea! Thank you. And agreed on taking some time to get used to. I've considered welded aluminum, there are many talented welders nearby, but LVL is pretty darn secure, and works like wood.

 

[Cheese]

LVL is a pretty good idea! Thank you. And agreed on taking some time to get used to. I've considered welded aluminum, there are many talented welders nearby, but LVL is pretty darn secure, and works like wood.

Just remember that the coefficient of thermal expansion of aluminum is roughly 5X that of wood.

 

[tjbnwi]

I’ve used this brand once, they were well made pieces.

Door Stiles - Intermountain Wood Products

Door stile blanks and door stiles are composed using LVL (laminated veneer lumber) engineered wood. This provides a stronger, straighter, and more uniform product that is much less likely to warp, twist, bow, or shrink than conventional lumber. LVL blanks are offered in custom sizes. Blanks are...

www.intermountainwood.com