Project to build walnut doors with stained glass -COMPLETED

[Frank Pellow]

(part 1 of 4)

I have been working on this project for a little while and decided to report progress here. Having to report on a regular basis (probably once a week) will give me added incentive to finish the project on time.

I keep a weekly journal and will extract entries from it to include in this thread.

I have recently become interested in stained glass.

That has inspired me to replace the two sets of French doors in out hallway with doors that I will build out of walnut and into which I will insert some stained glass windows that I will make.

Here is a before picture of the boring doors installed by the builder and that we have tolerated for almost 40 years:

[attachthumb=#2]

And here is a photo of the only window that I have completed so far:

[attachthumb=#1]

The dimensions of the window are 16 inches by 10 inches. Each of the four doors will be approximately 21 inches by 77 inches.

 

[Frank Pellow]

(part 2 of 4)

background: Cutting Glass

The first thing to do is to cut the glass. I already cut most of the glass that I need for the windows in my doors, but I need to purchase and cut a little bit more. One thing that will be needed is 16 more little coloured glass squares. All the squares that I cut before are green so I decided to add a little variety and cut these out of amber. When I cut the glass, I used a plastic grid and a jig such that shown below to guide the class cutter over the glass. Glass cutter is really the wrong name, all the thing does is score the glass a little bit so that the glass can then be broken in two pieces along the scored line.
This is shown in the following series of photos:

(1) With the glass clamped in place on the grid, the glass is etched following the right side of the metal straight edge with the cutter:

[attachthumb=#1]

(2) The glass is snapped apart along the scored line with the assistance of a pair of special “running” pliers:

[attachthumb=#2]   [attachthumb=#3]

(3) The long strip of glass is cut into many smaller 1 inch square pieces using similar techniques:

[attachthumb=#4]

As I have shown above, cutting glass along straight lines is easy. In fact, with this equipment, I find it much easier than cutting window glass as I did in my Dad’s hardware store back when I was 11 or 12. Those who have practiced more than I tell me that cutting curves is also easy and I expect that some day I will agree with them. But, for now, my window designs do not contain any curves.

Background: Assembling a window

Now, to assemble a window. The pattern is nailed to a board then a wooden strip is nailed at a right angle along two of the sides. This is shown in the first picture above. The outside edges of the window are formed from pieces of zinc that contains a channel that holds the glass. The zinc comes in long pieces and I cut four pieces of appropriate length using a shop-built miter “box” and a hack saw:

[attachthumb=#5]

Long pieces of lead “came” with channels in both sides are used to join the pieces of glass within the interior of the window. The lead came is very soft and easy to bend into shape –and out of shape if one is not careful. In order to made it somewhat more straight, before using a lead came, it is stretched about 8 inches for the four foot run. They sell clamps to hold the end of a section of came, but, I simply devised one using a regular clamp and a small piece of wood to fit into the channel.

The first photo belowshows a section of lead came before stretching. The second one shows it after stretching. Even though the lead came is more rigid after stretching, safe practice is to cut the stretched piece in half (as shown in the third photo below). Working with smaller piece reduces the chances of bending the lead came in a way that one does not intend. The lead is easily cut using a special purpose set of snips.

[attachthumb=#6]   [attachthumb=#7]   [attachthumb=#8]
 
In the photo below, some of the glass has been assembled and is being held in place by a few horseshoe nails used to push the assembly against the two wooden strips:

[attachthumb=#9]

In the photo below, all the glass has been assembled with lead between the interior pieces and zinc around the perimeter and wooden strips have been temporarily nailed in place in order to keep the assembly together while it awaits soldering.

[attachthumb=#10]

All the joints on both sides need to be soldered. First of all, flux is spread on the joints, then about 1/8 inch of solder is quickly applied and spread. I find that about 3 or 4 seconds application of the iron works well. In the photo below the joints on the far right of the window have been soldered.

[attachthumb=#11]

After soldering, some of the pieces still move and rattle around a bit withing the channels of lead and zinc. This is fixed by the application of glazing compound:

[attachthumb=#12]

The glazing compound is brushed under the edges of the lead and zinc came. Then calcium carbonate is poured onto the window and usede to both set the glazing compound and to clean the clazing compound from the glass:

[attachthumb=#13]

I find this to be a messy and time consuming process. For instance, her are the two windows, still somewhat dirty, even afer three applications of calcium carbonate with extensive brushing away of the residue:

[attachthumb=#14]

I certainly hope, over time, that I will get better at this final task.

 

[Frank Pellow]

(part 3 of 4)

The Project (using extracts from my weekly journal):

2010, Dec 25:

Before Christmas, I made a walnut cabinet door frame that is able to hold two 16x10 windows and installed the window I have already made into one of the holes. I gave this to Margaret as a Christmas present along with this note:

Dear Margaret,

This is an example of what the stained glass windows that I designed and built earlier this month looks like in a solid walnut door. The door and the shop-built trim are prototypes and I don’t (yet) have any plans for the door. Also, I might modify the trim.

What I have made plans for, are replacement walnut doors and door frames for the four hall doors leading off our front hall to the dining room and to the office. As with the existing plywood slab doors, the walnut doors will be double. They will be approximately the same size as the existing doors. The new doors will be made of solid walnut and each of the four doors will have two stained glass panels mounted into it.

I have sufficient glass, lead, zinc, etc. in stock to make seven windows identical to this one. Also, I have sufficient walnut in the shop to do the job. I plan to get started on constructing the windows and doors about mid January and, with luck and good management, they will be finished and installed by the middle of March.

Love Frank

Margaret really liked the promise to make doors. It brought her to tears. But, she thinks that each door should have three, not two windows placed into it, so that kind of alters my plans to do something about the door from the kitchen to the dining room. I will eventually do something there, but probably not in 2011. I can use some of the glass intended for those doors but will need to purchase and cut a few more pieces.

2011, Jan 2:

This morning I went to the first Eastern Toronto and  Region Woodworkers Breakfast of the year. It had been about 7 or 8 months since I had been able to attend one of these monthly meetings. It was good to many of the folks again and I got some good advice about the walnut and stained glass doors that I intend to build.

[attachimg=#1]

Obviously I took some prototypes with me. I think that I have determined how I am going to build the doors. It concerns me that the walnut I have on hand is only ¾ inches thick. That’s fine for cabinet doors, but I don’t think it will be thick enough for bigger doors, even though they narrow interior doors. The cost of thicker walnut would be prohibitive. While thinking about this in bed early Thursday morning, it came to be that I could re-saw the ¾ inch thick walnut boards into two thinner boards then glue those on either side of a strip of Baltic birch plywood. I tried this with a small sample and it seems to work.

Lamination: [attachthumb=#2]

Thickness comparison: [attachthumb=#3]

 

[Frank Pellow]

(part 4 of 4)

2011, Jan 16:

The hall door project is now underway.    The first this to do was to strip off the moldings around the doorway:

[attachthumb=#1]

I decided to retain the pine boards that had been shimmed into place to form the door frame and to screw boards of laminated plywood and walnut to them. I did insert a few more shims.

I resawed ¾ inch walnut into two boards each about 8.5 millimetres wide:

[attachthumb=#2]

The walnut boards were laminated with Baltic birch plywood approximately 12 millimetres wide. That plywood does not come in sizes big enough to use without piecing. At the woodworkers breakfast in Ajax on Jan 2nd Darrin suggested that I should put splines into the plywood joints when piecing them. I like Darrin’s idea, but used dowels instead of splines:

[attachthumb=#3]   [attachthumb=#4]

In the photo below, on the right hand side of the workbench two pieces of plywood are being joined and on the left hand side of the bench walnut is being laminated to plywood to worm a “board” to be used on the surface of the doorframe.

[attachthumb=#5]

The laminated boards were screwed to the doorframe inside the pine, thus making a slightly smaller opening for the doors. The screw holes are filled with shop-made 3/8 inch walnut plugs which, once the glue has dried, are sawn flush then sanded.

[attachthumb=#6]   [attachthumb=#7]

I also made the trim out of the 8.5 mm wide re-sawn walnut. Similarly, the trim was screwed in place then the screw holes were filled with walnut plugs. In the picture below, the trim has been installed on one side of the door frame and a piece of trim that is about to be installed on the other side of the frame is being sanded. All the wood was sanded up to 220 grit before installation.

[attachimg=#8]

In the picture below, I am sanding a walnut plug flush to the trim -having already sawn off most of the plug projection with a flush-cut saw.

[attachthumb=#9]

After sanding the whole frame again to 220, I applied a coat of polymerized tung oil sealer:

[attachthumb=#10]

That’s as far as I got this week. I will eventually apply three coats of medium luster tung oil over the sealer to all the frames and doors. Next week I hope to build one of the doors. I haven’t quite figured out how to build the door, so maybe all I will do is put together a prototype that will later be disassembled.

 

 

[GhostFist]

Interesting stuff. how much did it cost to set up your little stained glass operation? Time wise, how long does it take to cut and assemble the pieces for a completed window?

 

[Frank Pellow]

Interesting stuff. how much did it cost to set up your little stained glass operation? Time wise, how long does it take to cut and assemble the pieces for a completed window?

Including the cost of the equipment and supplies (except glass, lead, and zinc) that you saw above as well as the cost of a glass grinder and a few other tools that were not shown in any photo, the cost was about $600.

I'm getting faster at cutting and assembling but I am still quite slow.  Right now (having made 4 windows), my guess is that it will take me between 3 to 5 hours to cut all the glass for a 10 inch by 16 inch window and to complete the assembly of that window.

 

[Chuck Kiser]

Nice looking project Frank. One of these days I will try my hand at stained glass. I've always liked the look and the only limit is your imagination. And time of course.

 

[Wonderwino]

Looks great, Frank!  These doors will be a great addition to your home.

 

[Frank Pellow]

2011, Jan 23:

I put together a window reversing the position of the amber and green coloured pieces. The windows with the reversed colours will go in the middle position in each of the four doors.  I tried using a somewhat thinner putty mixture by adding more linseed oil and turpentine but it was still hard to work with and did not clean up any easier than the thicker mixture that I used on the first two windows.  This is definitely my least favourite step in building a stained glass window.

I settled upon a design for the doors and I am confident enough in it that I proceeded to build a real door rather than a prototype.  Below is an illustrated description of the steps taken to build one of the doors:

(1) Each door is to be 54 centimetres wide and 198 centimetres high.  The core of the door will be 15 millimetre thick Baltic birch plywood and it will be clad on the front, back and sides (but, not the top or bottom) with 9 millimetre thick re-sawn walnut.
15 mm Baltic birch does not come in sheets large enough to cut a doors core from one sheet, so it is necessary to have at least one joint.  I decided to build each door with one joint about 2/3 of the way down the door.

The first step was to cut the plywood into sections and, for this, I used my Festool track saw (as I do with most sheet good cutting):

[attachthumb=#1]

(2) I decided to use dowels in the joint and the dowels that I chose (2 inches long and 3/8 inch thick) were rather large for the 15 mm wide plywood.  3/8 inch is a little over 9 mm -leaving just about 3 mm on each side of the dowel.  It took a bit of experimentation and the use of some non-standard shims in order to set my Dowelmax jig so that it was centred on the plywood:

[attachthumb=#2]

Here the holes have been drilled and the dowels have been glued into the holes on one side of the joint:

[attachthumb=#3]
 
Of course, before doing this, the joint had been dry fitted.

(3) After the joint had dried, I tried the doo core within the opening for size.  Then, I marked the positions of the openings on the plywood and cut them out with a jigsaw.

[attachthumb=#4]

The openings were cut quite snug –with about 2 mm of play.  

(4) The windows were tested for fit:

[attachthumb=#5]

(5) A 8.5mm thick strip of walnut was glued to both edges:

[attachthumb=#6]

I expect that they were not needed, but I also inserted 4 small walnut Miller dowels through each strip and into the plywood.

(6) 8.5 mm thick walnut was glued and screwed to the hall side of the door.  I placed the walnut so as to simulate a traditional mortise and tenon solid wooden door.  The walnut overlaps the three holes on all sides by 6 mm on all 4 sides.

[attachthumb=#7]

Below is a picture of the door from the walnut –clad side with the windows temporarily inserted into the openings.

[attachimg=#8]
   
I figure that, with this, I now have “proof of concept” and that’s the most important part of any project for me (once a mathematician always a mathematician  [wink]).

That’s all that I managed to do on the door project this week and it looks like progress over the next three weeks will be minimal.  That’s because we will be away quite a bit and because of other work that has a higher priority.  But, I am still aiming to complete the job by the middle of March.

 

[jonny round boy]

Frank,

That looks really good. It's a great method for making doors with expensive timbers!

When you clad the other side, are you going to trap the glazed sections in completely? Or install those flush with the ply & then bead the glass in? Personally I'd go for the latter. It'd be easier to finish, and much easier if the glass is ever damaged...

 

[Sparktrician]

The walnut boards were laminated with Baltic birch plywood approximately 12 millimetres wide. That plywood does not come in sizes big enough to use without piecing. At the woodworkers breakfast in Ajax on Jan 2nd Darrin suggested that I should put splines into the plywood joints when piecing them. I like Darrin’s idea, but used dowels instead of splines:

Frank, I'm curious - why did you choose to use dowels instead of dominoes?  I would have thought that dominoes would be easier and more practical. 

 

[Frank Pellow]

Frank,

That looks really good. It's a great method for making doors with expensive timbers!

When you clad the other side, are you going to trap the glazed sections in completely? Or install those flush with the ply & then bead the glass in? Personally I'd go for the latter. It'd be easier to finish, and much easier if the glass is ever damaged...

Thanks, and yes I think that the technique is going to be a good one.  I do have a small concern about wood movement but I think that with wood this thin anchored with good glue, dowels, and screws I should be OK.

I plan to do the latter -for the reason that you mention.

 

[BigHonu]

Frank,

Great work! I'm looking forward to seeing the completed project.  Great figure in that wood!

 

[Frank Pellow]

Frank,

Great work! I'm looking forward to seeing the completed project.  Great figure in that wood!

Thanks, and I too am looking forward to seeing the completed project -but not as much as my wife is.  [big grin]

A big benefit of re-sawing the walnut boards the way that I am doing is that one gets very good matches for each set of styles. I have already cut the wood for the 8 sets of styles that will be needed on this project and the figure in the set that I have shown in the picture above is the best. 

 

[Frank Pellow]

The walnut boards were laminated with Baltic birch plywood approximately 12 millimetres wide. That plywood does not come in sizes big enough to use without piecing. At the woodworkers breakfast in Ajax on Jan 2nd Darrin suggested that I should put splines into the plywood joints when piecing them. I like Darrin’s idea, but used dowels instead of splines:

Frank, I'm curious - why did you choose to use dowels instead of dominoes?  I would have thought that dominoes would be easier and more practical.  

If I owned a Domino, this would have been a good project in which to use it but, as I said in the thread:
http://festoolownersgroup.com/festool-tools-accessories/dowelmax-vs-domino/

I agree with HowardH about the Dowelmax being the right tool for a hobbiest.  I have used both, but the one that I own and really enjoy using is the Dowelmax.  With the Domino one can work faster, but I am (usually) not in a hurry.

It's like many other things in woodworking in that there are many methods for doing a given task and, if one is lucky, one can choose the method that they enjoy the most.  I very much enjoy using a Dowelmax jig andit works very well for this task.

 

[Sparktrician]

The walnut boards were laminated with Baltic birch plywood approximately 12 millimetres wide. That plywood does not come in sizes big enough to use without piecing. At the woodworkers breakfast in Ajax on Jan 2nd Darrin suggested that I should put splines into the plywood joints when piecing them. I like Darrin’s idea, but used dowels instead of splines:

Frank, I'm curious - why did you choose to use dowels instead of dominoes?  I would have thought that dominoes would be easier and more practical. 

If I owned a Domino, this would have been a good project in which to use it but, as I said in the thread: http://festoolownersgroup.com/festool-tools-accessories/dowelmax-vs-domino/:

I agree with HowardH about the Dowelmax being the right tool for a hobbiest.  I have used both, but the one that I own and really enjoy using is the Dowelmax.  With the Domino one can work faster, but I am (usually) not in a hurry.

It's like many other things in woodworking in that there are many methods for doing a given task and, if one is lucky, one can choose the method that they enjoy the most.  I very much enjoy using a Dowelmax jig andit works very well for this task.

Thanks for the feedback, Frank.  I went to the link you suggested and got the following message:  "Not Found

The requested URL /festool-tools-accessories/dowelmax-vs-domino/: was not found on this server." 

I have the Domino tool, but not the Dowelmax jig, so that's why I asked. 

[smile]

 

[Frank Pellow]

Thanks for the feedback, Frank.  I went to the link you suggested and got the following message:  "Not Found

The requested URL /festool-tools-accessories/dowelmax-vs-domino/: was not found on this server." 

I have the Domino tool, but not the Dowelmax jig, so that's why I asked. 

[smile]

Sorry about that.  I fixed the link.

 

[Sparktrician]

Thanks for the feedback, Frank.  I went to the link you suggested and got the following message:  "Not Found

The requested URL /festool-tools-accessories/dowelmax-vs-domino/: was not found on this server." 

I have the Domino tool, but not the Dowelmax jig, so that's why I asked. 

[smile]

Sorry about that.  I fixed the link.

Thanks, Frank.  Mo' bettah good, yah? 

[smile]

 

[jakiiski]

(1) Each door is to be 54 centimetres wide and 198 centimetres high.  The core of the door will be 15 millimetre thick Baltic birch plywood and it will be clad on the front, back and sides (but, not the top or bottom) with 9 millimetre thick re-sawn walnut.
15 mm Baltic birch does not come in sheets large enough to cut a doors core from one sheet, so it is necessary to have at least one joint.  I decided to build each door with one joint about 2/3 of the way down the door.

That sounds strange, what size does it then come in? The standard size in Finland (and I think that's the size we ship it to the rest of the world, too) is 1220 x 2440 mm, i.e. approximately 48"x 99". The other size we have it in for some special cases is something like 1500x1500mm, but that's for the special cases.

 

[Frank Pellow]

(1) Each door is to be 54 centimetres wide and 198 centimetres high.  The core of the door will be 15 millimetre thick Baltic birch plywood and it will be clad on the front, back and sides (but, not the top or bottom) with 9 millimetre thick re-sawn walnut.
15 mm Baltic birch does not come in sheets large enough to cut a doors core from one sheet, so it is necessary to have at least one joint.  I decided to build each door with one joint about 2/3 of the way down the door.

That sounds strange, what size does it then come in? The standard size in Finland (and I think that's the size we ship it to the rest of the world, too) is 1220 x 2440 mm, i.e. approximately 48"x 99". The other size we have it in for some special cases is something like 1500x1500mm, but that's for the special cases.

Here in Canada, we get it in 5 feet by 5 feet sheets.  That works out to 1525 mm by 1525 mm.  Pehaps thats the size that you have in Finland for special cases.