door making is next!

[Justin Jump]

It’s been a while since I posted, some small projects here and there, but knee surgery was the better part of my year last year!

Anyways, getting into door making next, I got an opportunity to build some doors, and wanted to take advantage of this to practice and get some run time on making doors. I’m not making any money off of it, but I am getting the wood and router bit set paid for!

I remember a poster a while ago setup a fixture to glue up wood to keep it flat. Assuming that ¾” was used to get to 1 ½”, hence the fixture, or is it advisable to go straight to 6/4 and mill down from there?

Can anyone also recommend which bit set they used? The Freud’s seem to come with great directions and cheat sheets, but some of the reviews are throwing me off.

Infinity seems to have a good set, but out of stock, due in April….

Any advice is appreciated…any good reads out there on this subject?

THX

[Mark Wooden]

If you're talking about passage doors, two things
1) Unless you're only making one or two, a router is an inadequate machine, a shaper is really what's needed. Even for cabinet doors, a router will get through a set of kitchen cabinets, but not with any real production.

2) Gluing 2 pcs of 3/4" stock together to get to an 1-1/2" stile and rail (and standard thickness for a interior passage door is 1-3/8")is ,again, usually not a good idea. You may get away with a few pieces, but in general, the 2 pc lamination will be prone to walk, especially if you plane to 1-3/8" un-equally, i.e. 3/4" + 5/8" .
So solid stock is the better choice, but is should be jointed flat, so you'll need at least a 6"jointer
Best bet is to find a supplier of engineered door stock with the veneer species of your choice applied. This is a very stable material,and makes excellent doors.

[Justin Jump]

Im good on the milling part, I got an 8" jointer and a 15" planer....im torn on the shaper/router deabte...maybe if one shows up on CL....

[Bob Falk]

I am in the process of building 13 doors for my house addition/remodel. I have already built one (my first door build) and it turned out well (paint grade poplar, 1-3/8"). I have a large number of DF VG bleacher seats (1-1/8") and am thinking of laminating two pieces for the rails and stiles. I think the comment about planing symmetrically is a good one. I would not even attempt making passage doors with a router.....you need a shaper and a feeder to profile the rails and stiles. FFIW, I hardly used my jointer.....I find the track saw easier to rip the longer stiles to width and the with a good rip blade the finish is smooth enough to sand.

[Nick Lazz]

I recently built a door and used a stave type process for the rails and stiles with MDO. I had to use a vacuum press to build them and then veneer for the final product. My research found that if you were going to use solid wood for the process, two pieces would not solve the warp / bow problem. Instead 3 were recommended and even then orienting grain etc might be an issue.
I'm going to build more doors and probably try to find a source for stave core or build my own to get rails and stiles as flat and true as possible.

[lowell holmes]

I've made several exterior doors with a shaper, door cutters, and a thickness planer. It's not difficult with the planer, but I would dread trying it on a router table. I have one of those too.
I've used straight grain fir and had no problems with the door. There is a reason doors were made with fir for many years.

[Sam Layton]

I did a door build in the woodworking projects section on 10-31-2009. Also I made an I-Beam to glue up the stiles and rails to keep them flat. If you want to see, go to woodworking projects, advance search, put in, Interior door build, and my name, and is should be several posts down.

Sam

[Jim Becker]

I made one interior door this past year and have one more to go that's similar. It was a good project and I was very, very careful to keep things absolutely flat during milling and construction for obvious reasons. (It's hard enough when the door openings are not square, so flat was essential to keep things from getting major complicated)

[Bob Falk]

In my remodeling project, I have no prehung doors as I am milling all my own door, window, and base trim (historic house, so matching original trim). This requires fitting and hanging each door. I found the following video which, though old school, is the best I have found in how to fit a door to an opening, especially one that is not square.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVhRfB1Uv7g

[Jim Dwight]

I think laminated wood is typically straighter, not more crooked, than solid pieces but that depends on you selecting pieces to laminate that offset the bow/warp tendency of the other piece. But it will be more work.

I made all the interior doors for a house two houses ago out of construction lumber planed to 1 3/8 and shelving doors for the raised panels. I did a variety of joints, which worked, including dowels. But if I was to do it again, I would use mortise and tenon joints. Any router or shaper cope and stick profile will not provide enough strength unless you add some dowels.

You molding does not have to be in the rail and stile, it can be applied. I built one door for the last house, again with a frame of construction lumber, but with a panel of 1/2 mdf (the door was painted). I added an applied molding framing the panel. We thought it look good.

I am making some cabinet doors right now for a small bathroom cabinet. They are 3/4 thick and a router works fine. Two of them glued together (planed to 5/8 first) could make an interior door. But it would be a fair bit of work. I've seen the router bits to do interior doors on a router but I wonder how well it would work. You would have to slow the router down and I don't know about the power. You can't reasonably cut the cope and stick in multiple passes - or at least I never have. I would worry about minor change in pressure affecting the cut to the point the groove would widen and the joints wouldn't be tight. Maybe with a feather board it would work. Maybe a 15A router would have the power even slowed down. MLCS woodworking offers these sort of bits. I buy a lot of larger bits from them. I think they are good deals and I get good service.

It isn't just that a shaper costs more, the cutters also cost more. If I was in the business I would get a bigger shop and get one. But for my hobby use, I use a router table and am happy with changing my designs where necessary to handle it's limitations.

[Tim Bueler]

If you're talking about passage doors, two things
1) Unless you're only making one or two, a router is an inadequate machine, a shaper is really what's needed. Even for cabinet doors, a router will get through a set of kitchen cabinets, but not with any real production.

2) Gluing 2 pcs of 3/4" stock together to get to an 1-1/2" stile and rail (and standard thickness for a interior passage door is 1-3/8")is ,again, usually not a good idea. You may get away with a few pieces, but in general, the 2 pc lamination will be prone to walk, especially if you plane to 1-3/8" un-equally, i.e. 3/4" + 5/8" .
So solid stock is the better choice, but is should be jointed flat, so you'll need at least a 6"jointer
Best bet is to find a supplier of engineered door stock with the veneer species of your choice applied. This is a very stable material,and makes excellent doors.

I agree with #1. But on #2 if you are making your own doors it really doesn't matter what standard thickness is as long as you're also making the jamb. If you use solid stock try and pick out VG lumber. If you are laminating try and pick pieces that have similar grain orientation and glue opposing faces together. Obviously you'll want the door as flat as possible but that doesn't always work out. If you make your own jamb, and make the door stop a separate piece, once the door is hung you can tweak things in a little. 98% of people would never notice that your door is 1/32", or even a 1/16" out of plane with the jamb (excepting woodworkers/cabinet makers/trim carpenters). I've installed many a factory door that was not flat. If it's not too far out of whack you can install everything nice and plumb and the "spring" in the door will actually cut down on the rattling that can occur if you don't get your strike plate exactly right.

[Jeff Duncan]

I agree with #1. But on #2 if you are making your own doors it really doesn't matter what standard thickness is as long as you're also making the jamb. If you use solid stock try and pick out VG lumber. If you are laminating try and pick pieces that have similar grain orientation and glue opposing faces together.

This is partly true....however if/when doing different thicknesses you need to make sure you have hardware that will work with that particular thickness. Most hardware has some degree of adjustability, but it is made for standard thicknesses....1-3/8", 1-3/4" etc.. Personally my feeling is if your going to go through the trouble making your own doors why make then skinny? I've built dozens of doors over the years and have never made, (and will never make), a 1-3/8" door. Mine are always 1-3/4" or thicker. Just personal opinion though so take it with a grain of salt

A couple other things, given todays quality of lumber I've moved to using laminated cores. I use the same material, albeit a lesser grade, to glue up the cores and then glue 1/8" skins on. If your intent on using solid stock I'd either go full thickness single piece....if you can find quality material in a stable wood. Or I'd go with an odd number of laminations, 3,5,7 etc. seems to balance out better than even numbers. Oh and I wholly agree on the advice on the router. You'd probably be better off trying to make them using a nice set of old wooden planes than trying to make good quality passage doors with router bits.....just my opinion though

good luck,
JeffD

[David Kumm]

I'm a long way from expert but have built a few dozen, Walnut, Hickory, Oak, Mahogany, and Maple. Some were two piece, grain opposed, some VG, some flat sawn single. Hickory 1.5" thick because lifting them is so hard, the rest 1.75" with 1.2" tongue. Floating tenons 2.5x5" doubled up when room permits. None have failed, even when I did the unthinkable- laminated one side rift oak with flat sawn Walnut ( long story ). Point is that if you start with good wood, dried to 10% or less, glue them flat- I use epoxy for the open time, solid wood doors are pretty stable for interiors. I'm in Wisconsin so humidity swings are pretty wide. Doors are a lot of hours and not much wood cost so don't use poor quality. Good wood compensates for a lot. Dave