Interior Divided Light Doors Build Along - Part 5

[jteneyck]

Here's a link to Part 4.   With the rectangular door finished as far as possible prior to trimming to the opening, it was time to start on the arched doors, and the first step of that process was to make the arched jamb.  The arch doorway is not a simple radius, it has a slightly elliptical shape, but I don't want to copy it exactly due to the difficulty in forming the arch and then Joe gave me another reason to stick with a simple radius.  With an elliptical arch you have to bevel the top edge of the door so it will clear the arch jamb as it closes, just like a door is beveled on the lock stile.  I hadn't thought of that, but it makes perfect sense.  OK, I'm going with a simple radius.   This is the only archway in the house so there will be no conflicts in that regard.

When I drew a simple arch over the template I had made of the actual opening it became obvious that the radius would protrude into the head cavity at the peak and transition to the vertical jamb while not even reaching the opening at the tightest point of the ellipse.  You can sort of see the issue here:



But there should be plenty of space behind the plaster before I hit the framing, at least that's what the holes and measured depths say, but I just won't know until I remove the plaster and see.  This is a load bearing wall, too, so I can't just go cutting willy-nilly to provide clearance should the arch jamb not fit, although I'm sure if I had to remove an inch or less it wouldn't matter.  Anyway, with Joe's patient guidance, we decided to make the arch sit 1/2" lower in the opening to avoid any possible conflicts with the framing.  That will put the door a smidgen under 80" but won't be noticeable.  And the trim will cover the gap between the arch and existing plaster wall so that's not a real issue.  

With that decided I laid out the arch on a piece of plywood.  I also drew in the top of one of the doors and it's components which I will reference as I go along with the build.  Then I made up some L brackets and screwed them along the top edge of the arch jamb. 



I used 4, 1/8" thick pieces of 6" wide veneer + 2 layers of 3mm bending plywood for the arch, covered them with Plastic Resin Glue, and slid them into the vacuum bag.  I pulled a very light vacuum, released it, and then pulled the plies against the L brackets with clamping blocks and deep reach clamps, then turned on the vacuum again.  FYI, I needed some deeper reach F-style clamps for this; the ones you see in the picture are Shop Fox that I bought from Grizzly for a very good price compared to others I looked at.  I bought 6, and should have bought 9.  Fortunately, I had borrowed Ken Vick's ginormous wood clamps and they made up the slack just fine. 





I covered it with some heating blankets and let it sit overnight.  Getting the arch out of the bag was a bit of a challenge as it had stuck to it in a few spots.  Then I thought about pressurizing the bag to break it loose, and that worked great.  I stuck the end of my air compressor hose into the vacuum hose and blew it up until the bag popped off the arch. 



I pulled the arch out of the bag and set it back against the L brackets, and found zero spring back.  Perfect.



Next I ripped 3 layers of thick veneer to about 1-3/4" wide and glued them.  I bundled them together and taped them to the top inside edge of the arch, then put all of it back in the vacuum bag and repeated the clamping/vacuum process.  This will be the door stop for the arch. 



Thanks for following along.

John

[Skip J.]

Excellent build along! All of them! Thanks for showing us!