An Exterior Door

[David Hawxhurst]

someday i would like to be able to make a nice door like that.

[Brian Jarnell]

someday i would like to be able to make a nice door like that.

Get your self a Domino and a router and you are in business.


http://www.garymkatz.com/ToolReviews/festool_domino.htm

[Neal Clayton]

Just because a marauding horde of pillagers won't be invading a well healed blue blood's weekend estate anytime soon doesn't mean we don't build the entrance to take the hit if it had to!

maybe you should go in the moat and alligator business

Get your self a Domino and a router and you are in business.


http://www.garymkatz.com/ToolReviews/festool_domino.htm

pretty much, although i use traditional tenons the same still applies. you don't need alot of tools to build doors. something to cut the profiles, something to cut the tenons and mortises, that's about it. all of the locks and hinges can be done with shop made jigs.

the only thing different about doors and windows versus other things is the overall dimensions are more critical since they must fit in a certain opening size, but if you start with a good drawing that adds up (sketchup) the rest is pretty simple.

center the panels, center the tenons, the rest is pretty straightforward.

[Rick Potter]

That is a thing of beauty.

Rick Potter

[tyler mckenzie]

i saw a door snap in half that was joined with biscuits, granted the door didn't have 4 per joint. Biscuits for me have always been an alignment tool.

[glenn bradley]

The design fits perfectly with that stonework. Beautifully done. Are the "side lights" one piece boards or some sort of built panel? The hardware sets it off well and I really like the tall window panes at the top; makes it seem majestic.

[Russell Hudson]

OK. I gotta say some things here. I'm a cabinetmaker and 80% of what I do are cabinets. The other 20% is a table, a chair, a door, architectural details, etc. Biscuits work well to join face frames to plywood side walls. They can do much more but I think if I made mortises on a regular basis, I would have gone that route. I did it for the trestle table (see video) but that HAD to be done that way and I worked hard to do it (drill press and chisels) because I'm not set up to do that regularly. I even broke my mortising bit (attaches to drill press) years ago and never got around to replacing it. I still don't think it's going anywhere (the door) but if I made doors fairly regularly, I'd be using tenons,
For the next part...
I didn't install the door. Their neighbor (a pretty good carpenter) installed it. He used a circular saw to 'texture' the faces of the vertical beams. He said it took him a few hours to do it. I made the boxes (beams) for him to roughen up. It was built to the sketch I made. My only regret is that the panels left and right (3/4" mahogany ply) were supposed to be divided to create three panels high, They left that out. There should not have been that much unadorned surface. It looks pretty good but would have looked much better still, had they done that.
I would have written sooner but was trying to find out how he 'scalloped' the faces.

[Neil Brooks]

Why say in 100 words what I can say in one ?

Wow.

[Brian Jarnell]

I assumed we had someone not bad with an adze.

[Nancy Laird]

biscuits to try to hold end grain to edge grain on a 2" thick solid wood door?

this is 2010, wouldn't bet on it seeing 2020 without major issues, personally.

it just seems like an unnecessary trade of time for quality, but whatever floats your boat.
i've seen alot of biscuit/dowel joined doors fail down here in wet/humid/hot climates. just don't see the reasoning. it takes all of about an extra 30 minutes to cut the mortises, and maybe an hour to dial in a dado blade and cut the tenons. which turns a decade(s) door into a century(s) door.

You can put as many biscuits in as you want, I can still break biscuits in my teeth, and that scares me. i cannot break a solid 5/8" or 3/4" tenon or loose tenon, nor can I even remove a draw bore pegged tenon even without glue.

i saw a door snap in half that was joined with biscuits, granted the door didn't have 4 per joint. Biscuits for me have always been an alignment tool.

Gentlemen: I know that you don't believe in using biscuits to join; however, they are a great way to join. If the joint is glued properly and clamped for sufficient time to allow the glue to dry, the wood around that joint will give way before the biscuits will. Almost every piece of furniture in my house has been built by my husband and has used biscuits for joinery. The newest piece is five or six years old; the oldest piece is about 15 years old. None of them are showing any signs of breaking up or coming apart or breaking at a biscuited joint--and this is furniture in everyday use.

With the use of 8/4 material, those joints have just about as much chance of breaking at the joint because of biscuit failure as we all have of flying to the moon--not much.

Just my humble opinion, based on a lot of years of using biscuits....

[Peter Quinn]

Nancy, It is my humble and professional opinion that you are way off base. This is an exterior door made of 2" thick mahogany, and it is holding the weight of insulated glass panels. It swings in a jamb. One face is to the weather, the other in conditioned or semi conditioned space. It will face challenges from the elements, the sun and its UV damage, and due to its very purpose as an entry door physical stresses beyond what any cabinet ever will. It may stick at some point, and a person may put the entire weight of their body into it to open it. Few ever get a finish perfectly maintained over decades. If this were a dog show, cabinets are in the toy group, entry doors are definitely in the working group.

Sure, when the pieces are swept up after the lab tests, the "biscuits" are in tact and the "wood" around them has failed. Unfortunately the joint has failed, and thus the object it was meant to create has failed. And now the weather is entering your home. The point of a tenon is that it connects the two pieces quite deeply, and it decreases the possibility of any wood failure in the surrounding connection. It spreads the load over a greater area and provides a strong mechanical connection regardless of glue strength. The shoulders resist racking forces, and you must pull apart the wood on almost the entire width of a stile to cause a failure.

Simple test. Dry fit a large joint with a tenon and stand under it and hop on one foot. Now dry fit a door joint with two pieces of 8/4 material with biscuits and stand under that and hop on one foot. You'll be fine with the m&t, with the biscuits you may get a bump on the head. Half the glue joints in the back door of my house have failed, but the door still functions, sort of, due to its pegged M&T construction. But after 100 years of surviving hurricanes, Nor Easters, blizzards, pummeling heat in the summer, sub zero temps in the winter to the exterior with a very large radiator just next to it inside, hail, snow, kids, drunks, kids, dogs, more kids....I'm not complaining. Biscuits sure have a lot of good uses, I'm just not sure an entry way is one of them.

[Russell Hudson]

Gentlemen: I know that you don't believe in using biscuits to join; however, they are a great way to join. If the joint is glued properly and clamped for sufficient time to allow the glue to dry, the wood around that joint will give way before the biscuits will. Almost every piece of furniture in my house has been built by my husband and has used biscuits for joinery. The newest piece is five or six years old; the oldest piece is about 15 years old. None of them are showing any signs of breaking up or coming apart or breaking at a biscuited joint--and this is furniture in everyday use.

With the use of 8/4 material, those joints have just about as much chance of breaking at the joint because of biscuit failure as we all have of flying to the moon--not much.

Just my humble opinion, based on a lot of years of using biscuits....

Thanks, Nancy... I remember having joined two pieces of 3/4 X two inch stock (about 12" long / end grain to side grain / L-shaped) a few years back and 10 minutes later (could have been 5 min) I realized I made a mistake and tried to break them apart. I REALLY had to lean into it to break it and when it finally gave way, it tore out some of material from the side grain piece. I KNOW they work very well and they're easier to align (+ / - 1/32nd) during clamping.
This isn't a hobby for me. In my shop we must cut 500+ biscuit slots a year. (and I'll be doing that next year as well).
I DO think this thread was a good 'conversation' and I think diverging views are healthy. I appreciate all the input.
Thanks again, everyone...

[Bud Millis]

Awesome job!

[tyler mckenzie]

well said peter

With the use of 8/4 material, those joints have just about as much chance of breaking at the joint because of biscuit failure as we all have of flying to the moon--not much.

Nancy, a joint based on gluing short grain isn't a solution when making a door. This is a forum to learn, and i worry that someone might come to the end of this thread thinking a biscuit door build is acceptable. A 8/4" mahogany door is a heavy thing. Doors get slammed, and see a lot of abuse. Like i said i've seen biscuit doors fail, the customer was pissed. Your name your build.

[John Thompson]

Very nicely designed door. I'm not going there on the joinery as I'm busy cutting M & T's in my shop on a stand to hold up a very light wide screen TV.

Again.. beautiful door!