Exterior door,how to?

M

mastercabman

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Apr 15, 2007
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I need to replace my front door.
The house was build in 1939,and the door is rounded on the top,with 2 rectangular light(glass)
I want to remake a door to replace the old one.I will be using the old one as template.
So,what type of wood would you recommend to use?      I don't know yet if i want to paint or stain.
What size lumber would you use to fabricate this door?
I also like to put a glass in it,but i don't know what size or shape yet.
 
Well there are a couple of ways to go here.  If your going to paint it I'd use douglas fir.(seal the snot out of it)  If you are going to stain it Oak is nice and fairly stable if protected from direct weather.( I hate oak)  Can you post a picture of the existing door?  What species is it?  Is the door "arts and crafts" style?  What kind of neighborhood is the house in?  When I went out on my own I specialized in historical restoration so these are the questions we concider.  C Hughes
 
Chris Hughes said:
Well there are a couple of ways to go here.  If your going to paint it I'd use douglas fir.(seal the snot out of it)  If you are going to stain it Oak is nice and fairly stable if protected from direct weather.( I hate oak)  Can you post a picture of the existing door?  What species is it?  Is the door "arts and crafts" style?  What kind of neighborhood is the house in?  When I went out on my own I specialized in historical restoration so these are the questions we concider.  C Hughes
Click to expand...
Same here,i hate oak.The door looks like it is put together in 3 pcs.It's painted.I will try to post a picture tomorrow.
I'm thinking of doing a flat or raise panel door,nothing too fancy.Maybe put some kind of nice peice of glass,but i'm not sure yet.
If i get douglas fir,it should be good enought?
 
I've built a few exterior door in fir.  I like straight line it seems tighter grained.  It looks great with spar varnish.  In the end you can build a door out of anything if the right conditions are met.  Here in Kalamazoo, MI we have an architechual salvage shop that in some cases I can find an decent match in.  I've seen some really cool doors built out of just about anything.  C Hughes
 
The 80's ruined me on oak.  When I started as a carpenter in the mid 80's everything was "golden oak".  I've never recovered.  I do like oak for structual proposes however.  C Hughes
 
O.K. --- I'm just wondering if there was something about Oak I should know or wasn't aware of.

Justin
 
White Oak is enough different from red oak that I enjoy working with it. It is also a much better wood for bad weather.

Fine Homebuilding has some excellent articles on building doors using a method that includes gluing the wood up in layers that I like. They also showed how to put a double glass panel in. My house has a steel front door that I will be replacing soon. The "plastic" trim around the glass split due to the heat. I will use the method I just referred to. You may have to be a member of their online program to view one of the articles. You can also post in their online forum which is free to join, and I think you can get a free 30 day trial membership if you are interested.

john
 
John,
      I like that technique for building a door too.  Seems a little more stable and if you don't have the equipment set up for cutting stick and cope 1 3/4" thick stock then its proably the best way.  C Hughes
 
I too am not a fan of oak however it is a good choice for a front door.

Douglass Fir would be my first choice if at all possible.

Here is a bit of a poll question.

If you were to build a front door with a Domino would you use SIPO tenons or stick with Beech?

Dan Clermont
 
I have come up with a choice of wood. White Oak.I know,i did say that i did not like Oak,but white Oak is a little bit different than red Oak,and that's the one i really hate.
So,i will get my lumber this week end and get started.
I'm going to make a raise panel door.After talking to a good friend of mine,i'm going to get 8/4 board and have it re saw in 3 equal pcs.
Then glue them together to make 1 3/4"thick (+/-).I'm planning to make the inner piece narrower than the outside pieces to allowed the raise panel to fit and to make up my mortise for the rails' tenons.
I'm going to try to post some pics.but i don't know how.Could someone tell me how to?
 
I might put a plug in for Mahogany or Teak.  Either is more expensive than White Oak, but Mahogany offers richer finishing options and Teak is great for wet locations.
 
On a three ply build-up door no dominoes are necessary.  The good thing about oak is that you can stain it very easily.  White oak won't be to bad.  C Hughes
 
Wonderwino said:
I might put a plug in for Mahogany or Teak.  Either is more expensive than White Oak, but Mahogany offers richer finishing options and Teak is great for wet locations.
Click to expand...
Mahogany was on my mind,but it is a little more expensive.
 
Those of you who mentioned mahogany and teak............ where do you buy your hardwoods?  Any place that I've seen, that advertises, is way beyond my budget, at least for now.

Al
 
I get some awesome Genuine Mahogany off ebay.

You can message the owner and ask him for the exact thickness and board feet you want and do not have to wait to bid if you do not want to.

Genuine Mahogany


More Mahogany

I usually end up paying around 5.00 a board foot including shipping.

You can get a much harder wood than Mahogany that is a copy of Mahogany and is really exotic wood. Royal Mahogany is one.

Mahogany is great for doors, but it does easily dent and is no where near as hard as Oak. Many of the Mahogany exotics(not true mahogany) are 10 times harder than Oak.

Nickao
 
mastercabman said:
I have come up with a choice of wood. White Oak.I know,i did say that i did not like Oak,but white Oak is a little bit different than red Oak,and that's the one i really hate.
So,i will get my lumber this week end and get started.
I'm going to make a raise panel door.After talking to a good friend of mine,i'm going to get 8/4 board and have it re saw in 3 equal pcs.
Then glue them together to make 1 3/4"thick (+/-).I'm planning to make the inner piece narrower than the outside pieces to allowed the raise panel to fit and to make up my mortise for the rails' tenons.
I'm going to try to post some pics.but i don't know how.Could someone tell me how to?
Click to expand...

Mastercabman,

I very recently learned how to edit and post photos from several excellent teaching posts in FESTOOL OWNERS GROUP > FORUM TECHNICAL > Gallery & Attaching Images.  My first project posts with photos occurred just last month.  I used IrfanView to edit my digital photos, and Java the easiest way for me to upload photos into my section of the Gallery from a Dell laptop running VISTA OS.  I emailed Matthew S. to request him to set up my Gallery, and he quickly did so.  If you get "stuck," write a post describing specifically what you tried and what happened, you'll likely get some quick helpful replies as others did for me.  I had to do that a couple of times to learn the basics of editing and posting photos.  Matthew S. and Brice B. helped me, as did others in creating a compilation and PDF of my Entertainment Center project.

There are two routes to posting photos.  One is to use the "Additional Options" button that appears in the lower left of the message box when drafting a post.  You enter the location of your photo on your PC into that box, then use the "Insert Inline Image" function drop-down box and click on what you want.  Then you insert the number of your photo based on the order in which you added photo addresses from your PC in the "Additional Options" box. 
  If you inserted 1 in the box, your first photo would appear.  If you inserted 2 in the box, your second photo attachment would appear.

The other route is to first load your photos into your section of the Gallery.  If you use Java, after you get to the download screen you can either browse to your PC location where you keep the photos, or open your Windows > Pictures software, >directory with the photos you want to add to your Gallery, then drag and drop them into the Java window.  If any of your photo files are too large or otherwise violate the rules for posting on FOG, the software will immediately alert you to that fact and stop the download.  I found I had to toss out a couple of my photos that apparently were not correctly resized, or somehow carried metadata that FOG's Java setup rejected.  Whatever you drag and drop will appear on a list in the Java transfer box.  After you have selected all photos of interest, you simply click on the download button and away the software works.  After the download is complete, you'll get additional screens that allow you to type in descriptions and keywords for each photo.  These will appear when you look at the thumbnails in your Gallery, and are useful when doing searches within the Gallery to find photos of potential interest.

Once you have loaded your Gallery, you can insert a photo from it by clicking on the second button from the left in the second (bottom) row of little icons that appear near the top of the screen you are in while drafting a message to be posted on FOG.  You will get a pair of
normal_Coffee_Table_SketchUp_Model.jpg
between those two   inserts created by using that second button from the left in the second (bottom) row of little icons that appear near the top of the screen you are in while drafting a message to be posted on FOG.  Note that my copying that gallery address into this reply post also works to provide a hyperlink to the photo of interest.  If you click on my hyperlink, you should get a photo of a SketchUp rendtition of a square coffee table.

The step by step descriptions in the FORUM TECHNICAL > Gallery & Attaching Images are much better than my attempt to describe what I did.

Dave R.
 
I have built over 60 interior and exterior doors in a variety of styles such as A&C, French Doors, Classic 6 panel doors, double doors, bifold doors and I don't think that a Domino or even a series of Dominos provides the sort of strength that you need in a good solid wood door.  In most cases you are talking about doors that weigh between 80 and 140 lbs when hung.  I always use my own loose mortise and tenon joints where the tenons are 2"x6"x.5" thick, or 3"x6"x.5" thick.  Each is mortised into the stiles and rails 3 inches.  The bottom rail often being between 8-10" wide usually has two tenons per joint.  Center or lock rails usually have two tenons if the rail is wide or one 3 inch if it is narrow.  You also have to work around the doorknob and lockset to make sure you are not cutting away the strength of the door when you install the hardware. Top rails being narrow usually only has one tenon at each joint.  Of course I cut my profiles and panels on the shaper but there are other router methods and even hand methods to do that work too.  My typical 6 panel raised panel door will have about 30-32 pieces in it.  Glue up is done in one shot with plastic resin glue, which I buy in a 5 gallon of powder size for economy. I usually use 2 8 ft clamps from top to bottom and 5-6 4ft I beam clamps to pull the joints together across the door.  The easiest way to assemble the door is on edge by the way.  Trying to do it with the door laying flat is only asking for major trouble. and do a dry fit to mark your center lines for the rails and to make sure your panes are oriented properly.  I always match grain in the panels from top to bottom and on the rails if running across two or more doors and the adjoining edges of multiple doors are cut from one board.  If you want to do this kind of matching you will need a lot of 8 quarter stock 10 or so inches wide, but the finished look is worth the trouble.

I always start with 8 quarter or thicker solid wood for the main frame parts.  I start with roughsawn so that when I joint and plane it to size I know that I am working with lumber that is truly flat and straight.  If you get the wood prepped properly it makes the construction and handing of the door much easier than if you have a 4 ft by 8 ft door that is warped and twisted.  The door I built for my dad's place in Pittsburgh is solid cherry and 4ft wide and 8 ft tall.  The entryway that surrounds it is another 20 inches on each side and 2 ft above.  So you are talking a frame and jamb system that is pushing 8 ft wide and 11 ft tall and 6-7" thick in places.  I used cherry for the sill on that door but often choose white oak for the sill for wear and weather resistance. I usually use 3/4" thick wood for the raised panels and put two panels back to back. This I feel is much more stable for the wood dealing with 70 degree heat on the inside and 10 degree cold on the outside. With two panels back to back they can each expand or contract individually rather than trying to move as a one piece wood panel would do in battling these opposing conditions of inside vs outside.  Exterior doors I usually make 1 5/8 to 1 3/4" thick.  Interior I usually make 1 5/8" thick.  I see no value in cutting your 8 quarter wood into three thicknesses and trying to glue it back together...waste of time and effort in my view.

There are a few more things that I am sure I learned along the way...  If you have some specific question just ask....

Best,
Todd
 
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