Hello,
I am planning on making my first entry door and thought I would run the process by the folks on the Creek. The door will be 42" wide, and 8.5' tall, and 2.25" thick. I am thinking of using a mix of LVL and alder and building a shaker style door (don't have much in the way of tools).
After ripping LVL to size, I am going to edge glue .75" stock to 1 7/8 " LVL edges, then plane down to 1.75". After, I plan to glue 3/4" stock to the faces of the LVL, then plane those rails and stiles down equally on both sides till I get to 2.25", leaving a .25" layer of alder on each face.
A local guy I know told me to make my panels out of .75" stock. He recommended making two solid panels of alder, then glue each of those panels to a piece of .25" plywood???? This would result in a sandwich with the plywood as the peanut butter and a solid panel on each side as the bread. He said that if one of the panels cracked, the plywood would prevent air/light/moisture traveling through the door. He says it works great around here and that family has been building doors for years. Never heard of doing that though. Not sure how thick the panels should be either??
Once the panels are built, I plan to dado the rails and stiles, and using M & T joinery, glue the door together (not glueing the panels). Any reccommedations would be much appreciated, especially any ideas on keeping the door square and flat during glue up.
Thanks a ton