Build vs. Buy ???– garage doors, front door
steveno
| Posted in General Discussion on
Build vs. buy question: doors for my new house. Is it worthwhile (quality and $ savings) — to build 3 very high-end, interior doors (front, rear, side) and 2 high-end garage doors: one for a 1-car side and another for a 2-car side). Enough saving and differnce in quality over buying them?
Replies
Door Building
My impression is that door building is not for the faint of heart, nor slight of wallet. Unless you get great discounts on materials, you may well spend considerably more at building them yourself. My guess is also that most would say building high-end doors requires a hefty shaper to do the job right, unless you plan on hand-cut long M&T joinery.
Just my two cents, though. I am not a door maker, nor do I play one on the Internet. ;-)
Making Doors
I am a professional door maker, and sometime poster when the spam filter gawd allows me to post.
I agree with Ralph - not for the faint of heart. I have built doors for 40 years and have all the needed equipment, tooling and techniques. It is not beyond the reach of a very serious amatuer, but there is more than few mortise and tenon joints.
Lumber species, glass integration, weatherstripping, hardware (functional and decorative), thresholds, finish and design are all part of doors. Doors also must function, look good, be 100% relaible, safe and secure, and keep out weather as well as racoons.
Garage doors (overhead or swinging?) are something else - all the above squared. A double door (2-car) would not be structurally viable, and there is no historic precedent.
Considering that only pure crap is available off the rack, I sympathize with your situation.
One of these days I will finish the book on small shop door production - there is not much available in print.
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled