Arched "barn" style door design and construction

[Quesne Ouaques]

Hello:

We have a brick arched doorway between the house and garage, and I want to build a door for it that matches our Tudor home's architecture.

A "barn" style door built from 4 2x6s would be great, but I am at a loss as to how to join the boards together. If I use biscuits, I am certain that the shear force of the door's weight hanging on the hinges will eventually be too great.

I have an old table built from the hold cover of a mid-19th century tall ship. The look and feel of the hold cover resembles what I am trying to produce with the barn door, but it uses splines and two 1/2 inch steel rods to keep the board joints from buckling under heavy use!

What method would you use? Any and all help would be appreciated.

This is an approximation of what I am hoping to do: http://www.betterbarns.com/ArticleIm...75&ImageID=466

[Jamie Buxton]

I don't know what a "barn style door" would be. You mention four 2x6s. Do you mean that the door is made from just four 2x6's, perhaps running vertically? That is, the door is about 22" wide? That doesn't seem right, so I'm probably not guessing correctly.

[Quesne Ouaques]

Jamie - You are correct, sorry for the typo. I just measured my stock, and they are 2x8s (i.e. they measure 1.5" x 7.5"). That would make for a 30" wide door. If I remember correctly, the opening is about 31.5" and I need some room for the hinge and latch.

[Jamie Buxton]

Ah, the added image helps explain what you want.

One way to make that style of door is shown in the attached sketch of the inside of the door. The exterior's planks run vertically. On the interior there are horizontal planks and a diagonal plank. The exterior boards are fastened to the horizontals, often with nails or screws. The exterior boards are not butted together, because they will expand and contract widthwise over the year. They often have unglued tongue-and-groove joints, or unglued shiplap joints. The diagonal board on the interior is important, because it keeps the door from sagging.

[Jamie Buxton]

The example image you posted may not be built the way I described above. The example has some weird framing on the face. In particular it has a piece of lumber running horizontally on the exterior face of the door, right at the bottom. That's a bad idea. It will catch water and splashed dirt, and will rot out quickly.

[Kurt Bird]

If you have a drill press that will travel about 7.5", you could drill a 1/2" hole through each board at the top, middle and bottom. Using some allthread and nuts, the four boards could be bolted together and would resist sagging very well. If you routed a 1/2" groove in each internal edge, you could make a single, continuous spline for each joint between boards, making the whole assembly weather tight.
Kurt Bird

[Jamie Buxton]

An issue with using all-tread is that it may loosen over time. The lumber is going to try to expand and contract across the grain with changes in atmospheric humidity. If you tighten up the all-thread when the wood is in its expanded state, the all-thread will loosen when the wood shrinks. If you tighten up the all-thread when the wood is in its contracted state, the wood face under the nuts will get crushed when the wood expands, and then when the wood next contracts the all thread will be loose.

Gluing all the planks together -- with or without splines -- will give you a door whose width changes from season to season.

The approach I outlined above, which has been used for doors for many centuries, avoids most of the issues caused by wood's expansion and contraction. The exterior planks are fastened to the interior crosspieces, but not to each other. They can grow and shrink without colliding with each other. The width of the door stays the same despite the wood movement, particularly if the cross-pieces run the full width of the door and the edge planks are fastened to the cross-pieces near the edge.

[Quesne Ouaques]

I greatly appreciate all of the input. I have been getting closer to planning a final design for this door and I wanted to get comments on some additional thoughts.

I want the door to appear identical from both sides -- and it needs to be unhindered when swinging in both directions -- so I don't think I can use the traditional "z" shaped support boards nailed to one side that Jamie has suggested. The door that was there before had similar supports on one side and they prevented the door from opening more than 3/4 of the way because the supports hit the brick wall that the hinge is connected to.

Is it possible to do it using a piece of 3/4 plywood as the core, and then glue/screw thinned-out/rabbetted 2x8s to the ply? The door will be painted after this is done, so I can use any construction method I want. The only thing I'm worried about is expansion of the pine boards relative to the plywood.

Will the door hold together? Is there a better way?

[Jamie Buxton]

The door is going to swing both directions? Conventional door hinges don't do that, so you need to figure that part out carefully.

Most doors sit within a door jamb. In your case, the jamb wood would be fastened to the brick wall, and the door hinges fastened to the jamb. That jamb moves the pivot point for the hinges away from the wall, so the Z-boards on the door back shouldn't hit.

[Julie Rose]

I made my workshop doors by making a sandwich of ship-lapped boards (actually tongue-and-groove may be a better choice) on both sides of a plywood frame. The tongue-and-groove allows the wood to expand. The frame was 4" wide horizontal plywood on the top, middle and bottom of the door (your top piece would have to be wider to account for the curve). These pieces ran the full width of the door. In between, vertically, the 4" plywood filled in the space between at the right and left sides of the door and then I filled in the gaps with rigid insulation. On each side I then screwed on the ship-lapped lumber. To make it look neater, you can add a filler strip down the edge of the door to cover the plies but don't forget to add this into the door's width when figuring out your measurements.

~Julie~

[Sandra Force]

I am assuming that this is an interior to interior door, am I right? If so you may want to take the barn/stable door look one step further and go with the dutch look. You may also want to band it in c channel for support (gasp, I know that is not wood working but it is traditional for the look.) Also look at offset pin hinges like a gate for hanging it. This is only going to work if it doesn't need to be weather tight. That will allow it to swing both directions. I would also take it one steip further if it doesn't have to have a true locking mech and make it a pull latch much like was used in the early days. The complet door system would be very complementry with the Tudor style house.

[Quesne Ouaques]

I am assuming that this is an interior to interior door, am I right?

Hi Sandra:

No, this is an exterior door that closes off a breezeway between the driveway and the back yard.

Any other thoughts you have would still be appreciated!

[Paul Simmel]

I greatly appreciate all of the input. I have been getting closer to planning a final design for this door and I wanted to get comments on some additional thoughts.

I want the door to appear identical from both sides -- and it needs to be unhindered when swinging in both directions -- so I don't think I can use the traditional "z" shaped support boards nailed to one side that Jamie has suggested. The door that was there before had similar supports on one side and they prevented the door from opening more than 3/4 of the way because the supports hit the brick wall that the hinge is connected to.

Is it possible to do it using a piece of 3/4 plywood as the core, and then glue/screw thinned-out/rabbetted 2x8s to the ply? The door will be painted after this is done, so I can use any construction method I want. The only thing I'm worried about is expansion of the pine boards relative to the plywood.

Will the door hold together? Is there a better way?

So how thick do you want this door, which is now revealed to be an exterior-exterior door which doesn't need to be air tight, which swings both ways, and looks like the example pic in your OP?

Answer to your question re the 2 x 8's being screwed/glued to core plywood... both sides... it will probably work considering what I can glean from your needs. But the "plywood" core needs to be MDO. And the 2 x 8's will expand and contract, a lot.

1.5" + 1.5" + .75" = a 3-3/4" thick door.

If, as you say, it is going to be painted... then make the whole thing out of MDO. Mill/saw your fake "2 x 8" stock, intend to join them as half-laps, chamfer or round-over the showing edges, and glue/screw the whole dang thing together with exterior glue (or construction adhesive).

That will give you the look you seek and be about as stable as you can get... provided you get real MDO.

Just cut your arch last. The hinge part and the jamb part and the casing part is up to you.

[Lee Barker]

There's good stuff here. I have two concerns: First, the 2 x 8s are wide enough that, if not if just the right end grain pattern, they are going to want to cup. If you can go to 2 x 6, more of 'em, that would be better in this single regard.

You're going to have a passel of dead load on those hinges. Is it possible to surface these boards down to an inch, say?

And finally, the diagonal will be much more effective if it is in compression against gravity. (Once you become sensitive to this important engineering component, you may observe as I have that about 1/2 of the doors and gates out there with a diagonal have it backwards.) So ideally it should rest against the two battens, the lower end close to the hinges, the upper end away from the hinges.

The combination of climate changes and exposed end grain causes me to be reluctant to use just nails, particularly if the door is made of softwood.

I'm liking the continuous tenon idea, all glued, with slotted holes in the battens to allow the movement. It will go sideways and come back; just allow for dealing with that as needed.