Interior Divided Light Doors Build Along

[jteneyck]

I got a really nice job to build a set of arched divided light French doors and a companion rectangular door.  This is for an older couple who would like to eventually turn their dining room into a bedroom.  The doors will divide the dining room from the living room.

Here is the arch where the French doors will go.



Note the mid century modern furniture.  Their house is filled with it.  On the other side of the living room there is a door that we are using as the basis of our design:



It's hard to tell from the photo, but the doors, and all the woodwork in the downstairs, is mahogany.  The house was built in 1929 by a banker (who else had money in 1929?) and the woodwork is still all original, and beautiful.  If it were stripped and refinished it would be stunning.  The floors are white oak.  

This is a SketchUp model of the set of doors I designed:



I've built a few rectangular doors, and even a couple with true divided lites, but never a set of arched French doors.  But I know someone who's built a lot of them, Joe Grout, so I asked him if he would guide me through the process and he readily agreed.  Joe has given me great advise to get to this point, and I'm sure I'm going to need more of his wisdom before they are done.  I also decided to start by building the rectangular door first, to work out the build process, before tackling the arched doors. 

OK, to get started I bought some 8/4 Sapele and an LVL beam.  I picked Sapele because the grain looks the same as the mahogany in the house, and because it's harder than African mahogany.  On the downside, it's a little heavier.  But I'm finding that it works great.  I picked LVL for the core based on Joe's recommendation; it just makes sense.  



Good grief they were heavy, especially a 20', 2 x 12" LVL beam.  I had the guy at HD cut off two 7' lengths so I could handle it alone.  I'll need another LVL beam, and it looks like I'll need a little more than the 101 BF of Sapele I bought to finish the trim.  Fortunately, I have a local source for Sapele and they have lots of it. 

To get started, I jointed and planed the LVL beams flat.  My straight knife J/P caused a little tearout, but not bad.   The doors will be 1-3/4" thick, so I ripped the LVL  into 1-5/8" wide strips.




After turning them 90°, as in the right side of the photo, I glued them back together using TB II.  



When that had dried , I ripped the these cores to the width required for the stiles and top and bottom rails, and then glued 7/8" thick strips of Sapele on each side.



When those had dried I rejointed them flat and then planed them to 1-1/2" thick. 

My new Grizzly 636X bandsaw was just the ticket for sawing all the 1/8" veneer I needed for the doors. 





A power feeder would have been a big help on those 7' long pieces but I got it done.  I can't say enough good things about this bandsaw.  With the Lennox Woodmaster CT blade that I have on it it saws about as fast as you can push the stock through it and the finish is amazing.  I was able to cut one slice after another w/o having to rejoint the face flat.  Here's what it looked like straight off the saw.



My little drum sander got quite a workout but we got it done.  I cut the veneer to about 0.180 - 0.190" and sanded it to 0.150".



I glued the veneer skins to the cores using Weldwood Plastic Resin Glue.  I had to build a new vacuum bag to handle the 7' long stiles.  It's about 15" wide by 10' long.  I'll use this bag when I make the laminated arch jamb, too.  I put both stiles in the bag at once, on top of a Melamine lower caul.  On top I put a strip of heavy duty window screen to act as breather mesh and it worked great.  After closing the bag and turning on the vacuum I put a couple of heating blankets over the top.  They increase the temperature to about 40° C, which cuts the cure time down less than 8 hours, instead of 13 hours at 22° (72F).  That allows me to do two pressings per day, if needed.



After the veneers were glued on I ran them back through the drum sander to bring the thickness to 1-3/4", taking the same number of passes on each side. 





Next time, joinery.  Thanks for reading along.

John

[atgcpaul]

Looking forward to the build, John.

[Joel H.]

Wow John, that is fantastic! No questions, just gonna love this one.

Joel

[cputnam]

Looking forward to the rest. Kudos to Joe Grouut

[Ken Vick]

Thanks for posting this John.  You are going to make their other doors and woodwork look tacky beside the new doors.  I can see them wanting to refinish those old doors to match their new ones.  Ken

[Bob10]

I would have never thought of using LVLs.  Now I will as I have a small stack of it.  Thanks for the idea

[jteneyck]

Not my idea Bob, Joe Grout's.  I had always used a laminated hardwood core before, which worked well, but a plywood type material is inherently more stable. 

John