Interior Divided Light Doors Build Along - Part 17

[jteneyck]

Here's a link to  Part 16.           

I'm going to wrap this up, soon, I promise.  But first, installation day(s).  Yesterday was kick off for installation.  The clients were great about moving most everything out of the way and covering everything with plastic.  I had to help them move one large piece of furniture, and then I was ready to begin.  To start, I put up 2 x 2's floor to ceiling and then stapled 2 mil plastic to them.  On the floor I put some two layer, paper/plastic drop cloths. 



After measuring where the rough opening had to be I got out the Sawzall and cut into the plaster on the side jambs.  This house was built in 1929, but there were typical metal corner beads; didn't know that.   Anyway, I hacked them loose and pulled out the nails holding them.  Between the corner beads was a piece of expanded metal to hold the two layer plaster system.  I hate that stuff, but got it ripped out without getting ripped up.  I didn't need to remove much of the arch fortunately, call that good planning, mostly in the corners and at the peak for my arch to fit.  The arch had no corner bead, just metal mesh wrapped over a piece of plywood on each side, cut to the arch shape, and then covered with a heavy layer of plaster.  I ended up removing the plaster with the claws of my hammer, carefully.  Here's a portion of the mess. 



After I got the mess cleaned up I had this.



Next I installed 1/2" plywood spacers against the studs to shim the opening.  The left stud was perfectly plumb, the right one was out 1/2" which I corrected as I installed the spacer. 



With that done I assembled the jambs and put it into the opening with a couple of shims to hold it in place. 



You will see a spacer at the bottom between the two legs.  That spacer is exactly the same length as the arch spacer at the top.  At it's dead center I placed a set of crosshairs.  At the bottom of the arch spacer, directly below top dead center of the arch I put a screw and hung a plumb bob.  Using that plumb bob I could adjust the shims on the legs of the arch until it was at the dead center of the crosshairs on the bottom spacer which would assure that the jambs were plumb in both planes.  Of course I checked the legs with my level, but the plumb bob was way more sensitive to small changes than what you see on the level.  I saw Tom Silva do that on TOH about 15 years ago I think and never forgot it.  It came in very handy for this job.  

When I was satisfied I drove a 3" GRK screw thru the side jambs and shims and into the stud.  Those screws will be covered by the door stops.  The middle of both jambs were bowed inward, so I used a straight edge to check when the middle screw pulled it straight.  Thanks again, Joe, for the tip to use screws instead of nails for this.  Way better.  

And that's as far as I got yesterday working alone.  Today, my good friend Metod and I loaded up a U-Haul Ford van with the doors and trim and headed off to "work".  Those vans are great, easily holding the doors flat on the floor and all the trim and extra tools I needed today.  $44 for an 8 hour rental and the 17 miles I drove it.  I will use it again for delivery; much better than a trailer for hauling delicate projects.  Carrying the doors up my cellar stairs wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be.  Maybe Metod is really strong.  Carrying them into the house was even easier because we only had to go up 3 or 4 stairs.  Don't get me wrong, at 80+ lbs each they still weren't light, but it wasn't that bad either.  Anyway, we got all three doors hung with as little fanfare as is possible; it could not have gone any better.  No photos of the rectangular door yet, but all we had to do to fine tune it was put a single shim of card stock under the bottom hinge to get the reveal on the lock side and top to look right.  We then started on the arched doors.  We added blocks and shims above the arch to prevent it from moving, then removed the arch template.  We brought in the left door and hung it on the hinges then held our breath as we closed it.  We both stood in near awe at how perfect the reveals were and how well it fit the floor at the bottom.  One down and one to go.  We brought in the last door and hung it with only a little fiddling with one hinge, then closed it.  Moment of truth.  Wow, almost as good as the left door and perfectly in plane with it, but about 1/16" low at the top where it met the other door.  We could easily see that the reveal between the two doors was wider at the bottom than top, so we decided to loosen the middle and bottom screws on that jamb and drive the bottom shims in a little further.  Metod drove the shims on each side in maybe 2" further, then I tightened the lower screw and we checked our progress.  Perfect.  So we snugged the middle shim and drove that screw tight again.  And that was it for adjustments.  Never did I think it would go so easily.  And here they are.







After lunch we started on the moldings.  To determine the angles needed to cut the arch and side moldings we held them in position and marked where they crossed each other on both sides.



First I cut the side molding then we held that back over the arch molding and drew a line directly on the arch. 




Then we cut the arch molding to that line.  A couple of swipes with low angle block plane was all that was needed to get them to fit really well.



I didn't mention earlier, but to get the moldings, especially the arch molding, to fit tightly to the jamb we had to remove some of the plaster.  Nothing fancy and definitely messy; we ran a pencil line outside the moldings and used some old chisels to chip away the plaster until the moldings fit well to the jambs and to each other at the joint.  Another cleanup session. 

I cut biscuit slots in the ends of the moldings and we glued the three pieces together. 



And that was it for today  We decided to let the glue dry before nailing it down tight to the jambs.  Hopefully, we will finish all the moldings tomorrow while I have Metod's help as it's definitely a two man job.  And a big thank you to Metod, not only for helping me, but for preventing me from cutting the arch molding too short to start with.  Help is great.  Skilled help is priceless. 

I'm getting there - and I'm really pleased with how it all looks.  Thanks for sticking with me on this.  

John

[fredhargis]

Your clients should be really pleased as well, fantastic job!

[jteneyck]

We finished the trim on one side of the door this morning.  We both were very pleased.    



This is how the outer trim fits over the wide piece to finish off the trim package.  We nailed the trim by hand, no nail guns for this, 1-1/2" brads to nail the trim to the jamb and 2-1/2" to nail into the studs.  The outer trim was nailed on the side into the wide piece, again using 1-1/2" brads.  



To fit the both pieces of molding we had to cut away the plaster in several areas, especially over the top of the arch. 



I'll have to squirt some drywall compound into the gap and then touch up the paint to to make it look perfect.  We moved onto the other side of the doors.  Here you can see where we cut away the plaster to get the wide molding to fit flat on the jamb.  That process has to be repeated to fit the outer, narrow molding too, as I showed above.  





We used a short length of molding to slide along the jamb.  Wherever the  plaster pulled it away from the jamb we marked it with a pencil then used my HF oscillating multitool to cut the plaster.  Then Metod chiseled the plaster away.  Check, mark, cut, chisel, repeat until the molding fit all along the jambs.  Can't say enough good about how well that cheap HF tool and blade worked.  I also used it to cut the baseboard and shoe molding in place; I was afraid to pull those off to cut due to the fragile plaster.  




One more day ought to get us there for the most part.  That'll have to wait until Monday as the owners have guests tomorrow evening, so I'll have go and move out all my tools so they can clean up.  But we got all the plaster cutting and chiseling done so there should only be a little wood dust from here on out.  

John

[jteneyck]

Oh yeah, I promised to show how the glass stops looked on the top of the arch. 



I really liked how these turned out.  

John

[Ken Vick]

John, those are such beautiful doors and trim.  The one shot showing both doors closed is a beauty.  A special shout out for taking on such a challenging job.  No one would ever guess that this isn't your thousandth door construction.  I don't think I would ever take on such a job voluntarily and would not sleep for weeks if I were forced (by LOML) to take it on.  Ken

[Kansas City Fireslayer]

John,

I'll mimic Ken's thoughts--what a challenging project. It's one thing to do something like this for yourself but even a greater challenge when you take it on as a commission. A rectangular door is nothing to sneeze at and the arches more than double the difficulty in my book. Then add the installation into an older home. There was no shortage of head scratchers on this one.

The whole project turned out exceptional. It really makes you appreciate the fine details you see in older Craftsman and Victorian era homes. Great documentation as well. That's a job in itself. Thanks for sharing.

[robmaz]

John, beautiful job

[Duane N]

Excellent craftsmanship and those doors are beautiful.