My New Front Door

[briman87]

That looks amazing. Nice to be able to make stuff that everyone will see and be able to admire.

[Cooler]

I looks great.  And the diagonal structure should keep any joints from sagging.  Nice job.

Is the glass tempered?

[jteneyck]

I looks great.  And the diagonal structure should keep any joints from sagging.  Nice job.

Is the glass tempered?

Thanks.  Yes, of course.  Any glass used in a passage door must use safety glass (tempered or laminated) to meet code. When you order tempered glass you can have them etch "tempered" in a corner to prove it is.  I had that done on the two center panels so it can be seen from both inside and out.  

John

[Axehandle]

Beautiful. Excellent alternative construction techniques.

[grwold]

That's a really nice door!

[MarkSingleton]

Well done indeed.

[jteneyck]

Wow John.  That is outstanding.  I lived in Germany for 4 years and my wife & I loved to walk around the village I lived in and look at the front doors.  They had a thing for beautiful homes and amazing front doors.

I really like yours.  How did you come up with the process for building it?  I would never have thought of those things.  And why was the maple painted in the first place?  Moisture barrier?

Thanks,

Thanks very much.  I really like the architecture of the homes in Germany.  Must be a royal pain doing any remodeling though because the walls are block and the floors are concrete.  

I painted the inside because it goes better with the interior of my house.  My house is pretty small and I didn't want the door to shout out it's presence on the inside, only outside.  

There are several ways to build an exterior door, but if you want to use different woods on the inside and out then you don't have many options; you pretty much have to use some kind of core with veneer of each species on opposing faces.  I suppose I could have built if from solid Sapele and painted the inside, but I've never painted Sapele and wondered how difficult it would be to fill the grain, color change over time, etc.  So I used stave core, which I've done several times.  

First you build a core.  I've used LVL in the past but had some problems with the veneer splitting in the center of the lower rails because the LVL is so much more stable than the veneer bonded to it, so I use solid wood cores now.  Here's a picture of one with an LVL core to show you the construction:



With my door there is Sapele on the inside edge, too, where the stub tenon is.  Anyway, you make the core by gluing up strips of plain sawn stock so that it becomes QS or rift sawn, jointing and planing it to size and then gluing on the face veneers.  I use Weldwood Plastic Resin Glue and do it in a vacuum bag.  A drum sander is a big help in getting the veneers flat and to the correct thickness as well as in sanding all the glue ups to the same thickness.  



The joinery is similar to cabinet doors, only backwards.  The stiles have a stub tenon and the rails have a mating mortise.  This provides a shelf to hold the glass panels.  



The structural joinery can be done several ways.  Joe Grout who mentored me a few years ago uses dowels, but I don't have a jig for boring mating holes accurately enough, but I do have a nice horizontal mortiser, so I use large loose tenons.  They are 5/8" thick and the mortises are nearly 3" deep in both the stiles and rails.  A large format Domino would make it really simple.  There are two tenons in the bottom rail, one in the top, and also where each muntin and diagonal join.  As Cooler said, this door will never rack.  

I use System Three T-88 epoxy to glue up doors because of the long open time, it's waterproof, and it's reasonably stable at high temperature.  Dowels are so much faster that you could go with other glues, but I would not use Titebond III for an exterior door because it looses a lot of strength at high temperature.  Why is that important?  An exterior door that gets direct sun on it can get really hot, 200F behind a storm door if it's painted a dark color.  Even without a storm door they can get very hot.  The epoxy I use isn't that great at high temperature, nor is West Epoxy, but better than TB III.  I'm actually contemplating going to PU glue because of how much better it is at high temperature.  But if the door is well protected and never sees direct sun TB III would be fine.   There is no storm door over my North facing door and it will get only some afternoon direct sun so I think it will be OK.  Of course, you could go about it the old school way and use draw bored through tenons and never worry about glue failure.  Doors built that way have lasted centuries. 

I came up with the idea of wrapping the stub tenons where the glass sits with Al tape to simulate the look of an insulated glass unit.  BTW, you can buy stock or custom insulated glass units, too, and I could have done that for my door, but I've had good luck with this approach so decided to use it again.  The foam tape makes it a little easier to fit the moldings to the glass as it has some give, and it also gives a finished look along that edge. 

The aluminum foil vapor barrier idea came from a guy on SMC who does some very nice work. Another gentleman on WoodWeb thinks it's hogwash. Seemed like a good idea to me so I've done it on the doors I've made.

I hope that answers your questions.  If not, let me know and I'll try to help.

John

[Cooler]

Thanks.  Yes, of course.  Any glass used in a passage door must be tempered to meet code. When you order tempered glass you can have them etch "tempered" in a corner to prove it is.  I had that done on the two center panels so it can be seen from both inside and out.  

John

How did you specify the shape to them?  It seems like you would have to show a drawing.

My house, built in 1953 has a legal door (a 5" x 5" window in regular glass-which is small enough to be exempt) but the side light is floor to ceiling and in fluted glass and I am certain that is not tempered, and I am fairly certain it is not to the modern code. 

Can you tell us where you got the tempered glass?

Thanks.  Nice job.  It has to impress those that visit.

[GeeDub]

That is a beauty John. More of your typically wonderful craftsmanship.

[fredhargis]

A very nice piece of work, well done!