Creating a front door with full width rails
pwwppw
| Posted in General Discussion on
Hi,
I want to build a new front door, of good quality but on a budget.
It will need to be 800mm wide and 2100mm high.
There are lots of old oak tables with deep enough worktops to plane/thickness solid rails and styles.
I plan to join it with loose tenons. It will be fully painted with raised lower panels and three glazed upper panels. Based in the south-east of the UK, so we get high humidity and temperatures -5 to +35 celsius
The issue I have is most of the tables are 1.8m long, so I will struggle to find stock for 2.1m styles.
Would it be a problem if I had full width rails instead of full height styles to achieve this? As sketched in the attachment.
I would mount the hinges and locks purely within the styles.
Thanks in advance.
Replies
I can see where you could put extra strain on smaller joints if the rails were to swell with humidity and jam up a bit, and over time weaken it by pushing and pulling to open andclose it. My first thought is to scarf joint two pieces to get your length and groove the cuts to accept a spline. Cut the stile pieces a bit wide to straighten any slight kink at the joint. You say you are going to paint so likely only you would know.
You could do this and end up with a structurally sound door, but it's an open question how dimensionally stable it would be and how it might be weather-stripped to stay reasonably airtight with seasonal changes in humidity and persistent difference in temperature on the two sides. The bottom rail with one edge in close proximity to damp ground is most likely to twist which might just open up a gap or could pull the whole frame out of flat.
Doors, frames, and hardware is my day job. Field repaired stile and rail doors and I have never seen a S&R door made this way. Not saying it isn't physically possible but there are usually reasons. I would encourage you to make you stiles at least 150mm wide to accommodate a mortise lock. Also to combat the racking that can occur over time. With a bottom rail at 250mm and a top at about 200mm. You'll need more meat to keep it flat over time. The stiles really should go the full height and the rails the full width when you factor in fixed tenons. I would discourage the use of loose tenons. Good luck.
The only way I can think of to get this to work is to make the center stile extra wide and use bridle joints, maybe with the interior parts angled or stepped to overlap. You can get plenty of meat glued up in there and it should be pretty stable.
I don't think loose tenons alone will hold up over time. Something to lock things together in plane (T&G, cope & stick) is needed. Extend what you are using to house the panels and glass throughout the rest of the door.
Fantastically detailed responses, thank you
The idea for loose tenons came from a Stumpy Nubs video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dttecx5yXPk.
I would propose doing the same large tenons, not small Domino tenons.
Is that method suitable since he builds an engineered core door, but unsuitable for me if using solid rails and styles? Or just a bad idea regardless.
A couple years ago I came across the pictured door in Wyoming (western US). The building is an early 1900's hunting lodge. So it can be done but this particular example may be too rustic for your needs.
Thank you, that's the first I've seen of this design in real life. If that's survived 100 years unpainted then I'm impressed! However we have no porch, and only a small overhang from the lintel so the door will get plenty of weather, at least the lower half. I suspect there's a good roof and overhang above the pictured door.
I see 2 problems:
The corner joints are stressed directly by gravity, and failure is catastrophic.
With the hinges on the stiles, seasonal shrinkage can cause the rails to protrude, potentially binding the door and preventing it closing. You could leave oversize gaps...
The door design and loose tenons are going to make for a fragile door, glue alone will keep it together for a time. Consider first a good design and adapt the wood to the design instead of the opposite. It is very easy to laminate uprights from shorter pieces staggered in thickness that will be as solid and straight as a single piece.
yes laminating the styles stuck me a sensible but I've seen some talk of the inner and outer laminations expanding at different rates with one face being external and the other being internal. However I would have thought the same would apply to a solid style.
What glue would you recommend for this? Would laminating two pieces be sufficient, or would a third improve the resistance to expansion deformation?
There is no differential expansion in a laminated piece, outdoor rated PVA glue will be plenty strong. Make sure you apply plenty of pressure when glueing and surfaces are jointed flat.
Great, I think laminating up longer stiles is the solution to my problem then, with a bridle or scarf joint as has been suggested.
Plus learning the correct spelling is a bonus for me!
I've got my oak milled and am now planning the glue-up.
The boards are 18mm and I have a 50mm target depth, dictated by the old frame.
I plan to laminate 6 layers of boards, pairing a longer and shorter section in each layer and offsetting the joints in different thicknesses. I'll re-mill if required then re-saw to get my 2x 50mm stiles.
I'm thinking about the joint between the boards in each layer:
-Rather than a butt joint, should I cut a scarf joint? Either across the face of the board, or bevelling the edge? I can get to 45 degrees on my mitre saw in either orientation.
-Perhaps PU glue, being gap-filling, would be useful?
I think you're being overly optomistic on the yield from that stack. 6x18mm is 108mm... even a PERFECT resaw is going to be on the edge of too thin when cleaned up, and you'll be resawing down a glueline anyway. Glue them up in 2 stacks of 3 and hope they don't move at all... to be safe, add a layer.
All that glue adds water, tie them down and wait a good long time before releasing them. Using epoxy takes the water out of the glueup.
I agree completely with Gulfstar. Full height stiles and traditional mortise and tenon joints are the right approach. Don't compromise on something into which you will put this much work and will see everyday.
To keep the door in good shape.
Good seals and drip edges above to keep water off the door drip edged sweep to keep water from going under and threshold that bleeds water back through a pan.
Reseal the top and bottom edges of the door as regularly as possible once per year min.
Never wedge a door open on the hinge side. Don't used hinge pin stops... ever.
Shim the hinges to square the door up. Never file a strike plate. Adjust the door instead.