Door construction

woodguy7

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Apr 26, 2009
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This is not a very good work in progress or a particularly "pretty" item but it happens to be what i am working on just now.  There has been some discussions on another thread about using Dominoes for full sized door construction.  While some think this is ok & that's fine, i think it should be done with propper joinery I.E mortise & tennon joints.

This door is made from White Oak & will be getting linings with a vision panel.

This is where i am at so far.

The tenons are cut on the radial arm saw with a dado blade fitted.  Not the most accurate but if left slightly thick they can be fine tuned with a plane.

The mortises are cut with a dedicated floor standing mortiser.

The haunch on the tenons is used for the wedges which will be used during the glue up.

When the tennon is dry fitted & the shoulders are tight you can then do a dry clamp.  If everything is parallel & square, take apart & cut the tenons ready to accept the wedges.  You also have to chisel the outside of the mortise to allow for the tennon splaying apart like a dovetail.

Sorry i have not added the relevant text to each picture, i have not figured that out yet  [smile]
 
looking good, i wouldnt dream of a door built with dominoes.  Ever thought of getting a tenoner?
 
For this door i am using Polyurethane glue, messy but strong.
With poly you have to work fast.  Coat all faces of the tenon & shoulders & get together as quickly as you can.  Clamp it together & check the diagonals for square, no need to check for parallel as that has been checked in the dry run.  If square is off, move the clamps to an angle & re tighten.  Re check until dead square.  I generally don't let .5mm go.
Now the wedges have to be hammered home but one tap on each wedge at a time.  If you hammer one wedge home it will move the rail up or down the stile, depending on which one you hit.  You must put them in equally to ensure the door will stay square.

Once the glue is set & had a chance to cure, remove the clamps & clean up the glue.  That is the good thing about polly, easy to clean when hard.  Next is to cut the end of the tenons & plane flush.  The face of the joints can also be planed flush ready for sanding, which i only do at the end.

Some more pics.  Wont be at this door tomorrow but as soon as i am i will post back.

Thanks for looking, Woodguy.
 
Dean

I would love a tenoner but 2 problems with it.  I don't have the room for it & its a bit of a 1 trick pony.  I know you could say that about a mortiser but there is no way of doing this without a mortiser.  I have ordered a bandsaw to rough out the tenons & will get a tiger head for the spindle to clean up the tenons (thanks for the tip John)

Cheers, Woodguy.
 
Nice work woodgay

How long do you let the Oak acclimatize before  working with it ?
 
"WOODGAY"

I hope you just spelled that wrong  [eek]

The Oak is Kiln dried so ready to be worked straight away.

Cheers, WOODGUY
 
Evening  Woodguy,

Very nice door, really nice Plane  [smile]. Your welcome to the tip. Very clever photo of you using radial arm saw. How you do that one hand on stock and one hand on saw.  [big grin]
John
 
Sorry mate  [blink], wife was nagging when i was typing   no offence intended
will you do the finishing of the door ? if so how
 
Spotted the woodgay [eek]. Not laughing, am not, really ! Honest!
John

Must be the  kilt [poke].

Sorry could not help myself
 
which poly glue do you use? 5min or 30min?  Yeah they are a 1 trick pony but they do it sooooo quick,
 
Lovely job so far. I have one question from a novice- i.e. me- how do you fit the door panels in?

Richard.
 
Ok, where to start

John, the photo was taken with the camera on a mini tripod & the timer set to 10 secs, & no i don't wear a kilt  [huh]

Dean, i use the 30 min poly.  even it goes off a bit quick.

Richard, the panel is going to be lining boards & i will cover the installation in the next installment.

Festatic, yup, will be finished soon & will post the grizzly details.

Like i said earlier, this is by no means a fancy door, pretty basic really.  Will post some pics of other doors i have made.
The main purpose of this is to show anyone who does not know, what a proper mortise & tenon joint looks like & how it should be used.

Woodguy.
 
I've used poly glue on several projects where I wanted the rigid glue line though I hate the mess and cleanup.  I bought a 5 lbs pail of plastic resin glue and plan on giving it a try next time.  Longer open time (for this one) and I'm thinking "no foam"!  Equally rigid glue line although I'd imagine that it can be a finer line since you don't have foam trying to gap your joint.
 
Ok, here is some pics of a door screen i made for a customer in Mahogany.  Besides this, there was another the same & one single door.

Woodguy
 
Great thread and very nice work on the doors! [thumbs up]  I've got a question on the arch top doors, why is the grain the panels running horizontally?
 
             
         Nice work Woodguy,I especially like the last one.Proper joinery built to last.  
woodguy7 said:
& no i don't wear a kilt  [huh]

Woodguy.

   You spoilt the image! [wink]
 
Brice Burrell said:
Great thread and very nice work on the doors! [thumbs up]  I've got a question on the arch top doors, why is the grain the panels running horizontally?

Good question, Brice.
It is often done when the width of the panel is greater than the height, so as to minimise the overall wood movement effect. (as wood moves very little along the length of the grain and can be significantly more across the grain.) Hope I answered that well enough.

Great doors Woodguy.  [thumbs up]
Tennoners only really come into their own when you have to make multiples of an item, like a houseful of doors, then the time saved is huge. You need a lot of houseful's of doors to pay for one though! [laughing]

Rob.
 
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