Soooo .... Let's Build-a-Door

I thought it might be informative to show a few pictures of the process of making a custom door.  This segment will be devoted to creating the door. 

I start with rough sawn 2” thick material that I cut oversized then the finish piece 

I joint each piece on its’ face to make it true and straight.  Then I surface each piece down to a 1-13/16” thickness.  After the rough lumber is surfaced, I joint an edge to make the stock straight and square.  Then each piece is cut to width and length and sized to my calculations for each piece.  I then layout the mortise pockets and the dowels, which I make myself out of Mahogany or White Oak (these woods don’t rot like commercial Birch dowels)

When all of the pieces are ready for assembly, they are laid out over the bench an pre-glued 3 times with the exterior glue I’ve used for 30 years without a failure. 

 

 After every piece is pre-glued, we start putting the door together from the bottom to the top.

When all of the pieces are put together we go to extraordinary efforts to clamp the door, flatten all the joints, and clamp the pieces from side to side and top to bottom.

Then I start cutting out the sidelights, two, and the process happens all over again

Each door is constructed with the same methodical steps, never taking short cuts or making compromises in the construction of each door, sidelight, or transom.

oh ........ by the way ...... the same attention to detail goes into each interior door, garden gate, or driveway entry gate.

There is this reminder on my shop wall,
                                 “if you don’t do it right the first time, when will you have time to do it over”

Please visit Our Site and my Door Gallery to view the actual construction of over a hundred doors.  I build a web site for each client to view the construction of their individual door(s), and it offers you a chance, to see for yourself, the craftsmanship and care that goes into each door.

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