Balboa House Doors

[Mark Singer]

Well about 300 BF of 8/4 rough Hondo. Mohagany arrived yesterday. i placed the order by phone and specified min. width, length and rough not surfaced and I told my salesman it was for doors.. The material is consistent and does not really need to be hand selected. Never order surfaced lumber for doors ...it is not flat enough. This should produce about 11 - 8ft dors of varing widths. I will first select the linear grain for the stiles leaving the figured material foor rails. This is for stability and not warpinng..

I will try to document the construction as it continues in this thread.

[Roy Wall]

Mark,

Are those boards sized such that you can make one door per board-- is this how you're doing it???

[Brad Hammond]

very cool mark! can you tell us who you ordered from? i'm about to order about 400bf of qs red oak myself for cabinets and doors for our house.
i'm interested in your progress, i plan on building my pocket doors out of hondo mahogony as well.
looking foward to it!

[Mark Singer]

These were bought from Weber Plywood in Tustin. It is a very large disttributer and mahogony is rare these days.... I ordered min 10" wide to get 2 stiles per board at 4 1/2" net after jointing.This will allow for German FSB mortise locks. Hinges will be 4x4 butt hinges. Net door thickness should be a stong 1 3/4". They are not straight lined. Then I ordered 3 more for bottom rails at about 10" wide. The head rail is the same as the stiles ...4 1/2. I will plane a small area and spay it with water to select out the figured boards for the bottom. If the twist a little it has little effect on te door since they are 2' long approx. They will not get ripped in half as the stiles and head rail. Price was $5.75 plus $15 for shipping to the door. I will make the jambs also....they were out of 4/4 right now.

Here is FSB website....some of the finest hardware available..
http://www.fsbusa.com/

The Front entry will be special with true divided light panels in a long horizontal pattern . all the others are interior doors.

[Jim Becker]

I'm really looking forward to this pictorial, Mark, as I someday would like to make replacement entry doors for the "old" portion of our house. The current ones were custom made for the previous owner, but without regard to wood movement and so forth. Both have cracks that I've had to deal with to eliminate air infiltration.

[Mark Singer]

Jim,
Looks like you really have an eye on what I'm doing

Most of the doors are single lite French doors. This is a simple door ,but , serves as a very good example of door making. Wood panels, multiple lites , carving are all options that can be added. The main entry door in this home will be a bit more involved and will shoe the sloped sills and waterproofing / flashing details that are important to the weather side.
I will also show making the jambs,hanging the doorsand hardware installation...
The entry will have a rabetted jamb detail.

I'm really looking forward to this pictorial, Mark, as I someday would like to make replacement entry doors for the "old" portion of our house. The current ones were custom made for the previous owner, but without regard to wood movement and so forth. Both have cracks that I've had to deal with to eliminate air infiltration.

[Chris Padilla]

Should be awesome, Mark! Do you want a free apprentice? I only work for pizza slathered in thinly handplaned shavings of Mohagany and I'll be happy to serve you up some as often as you like!!

[Mark Singer]

Yesterday I worked about 3 hours.....just enough to remind myself how pyhsically strenuous this work is! The last time I made this many large doors was 5 years ago! I am working with 18 rough 8/4 boards about 9' to 10' long and 11" wide.
If you are builing 0ne door it is much easier....you would only have 1 1/2 boards.

Tips:
1. Sort all boards and select out the least straight ones and label them "Rails".
The rails get cut up into short lenghts and the warp has little effect.

2. Cut the bottom rail to 9/1/2" This way if you decide it shoud be a top rail you can split it with no waste.

3. The Festool 55 saw is too shallow to straight line an edge. it leaves a 1/4" even at full depth that must be planed off. I may straight line with a router today, using a large bit.

4.You don't need to face joint the rails to straighten....if they are really bad a jack plane and winding sticks will get them close then run them through the planer.

All bottom rails are cut and planned....Next I will cut stiles and select out the top rail once they are face jointed and planed. I want the staightest and most stable boards for stiles....this is what determinnes the flatness of the door

[Mark Singer]

I used a long aluminium storefront section held with one screw at the tail . This works well on the tablesaw to straight line the rough boards. Use a Rip blade 24 tooth to rough out the stock a WW II is too nice at this point. All the boards are stacked ready to face joint...This breaking down is the hardest physical part. I also had to unload an overfilled Onieda canister....ooooh that was fun!

So bottom rails are cut and planed stiles are cut. Among my stile selection I found a "banana" and re labeled it "rail"... This is why the order that you follow is critical. Had I cut my top rails...I would have $100 waste already!

[Steve Clardy]

Are you ripping your stiles a little oversize, in case they bow when ripping?
Steve

[John Miliunas]

Great progress, Mark! Yeah, I'll bet there's some sweat involved with processing so much of that large stock! Looks like you've got a good handle on it, though. I'm carefully watching this one, as interior doors are on the far horizon for me, as well! Thanks much for tutorial. Nothing like learning from the best!

[Mark Singer]

Steve,

On the rough cut I'm 1/4" over then joint , then drum sand on edge...
A good tip is to vary the stile width to the door dimension, The M Br is a 3'-6" door and the stile will net 5"...it just looks better.

Are you ripping your stiles a little oversize, in case they bow when ripping?
Steve

[Mark Singer]

Ryan stopped by for a couple of hours and that really got things moving . We planned all the material to thickness.

Tip: You can not make your final rip cuts until the lumber the faces have been surfaced on the planner. They are not even parrallel until that time so you need to rough rip over and then final rip and joint after planning....that is true of any rough lumber prep ....doors or anything. The rough wood doesn't bed well to the table or fence

I dumped my large Onieda canister 3 times today!!!!

[Jerry Clark]

Thanks for sharing and documenting the progress- This is interesting!

[Doug Jones from Oregon]

Mark...interesting process.

I noticed the Grip Tites on the fence of the shaper. Are you using these on the outfeed side to insure constant pressure at that end of the board?

Doug