Thread: WIP Diminished stile French Doors

The glue up went to plan after the last post and the clamping brought the diminished shoulder lines together fairly well, part of the fitting problem was due to slight bows that had developed in the stiles. Unfortunately since then there's been a bit of an unplanned interruption here and not much progress on anything since early December. I'm trying to build up the enthusiasm to get back into it and finish this off. Here's a pic of the doors currently showing a few of the warts due to using construction grade timber and the alignment probs of the poorly handcut tenons.
doors5.jpg

I'll try and plane the joints smooth, but I'm a bit apprehensive of how that is going to affect the look of the mouldings since it might take out about half of the shadow line rebate in the mould. I'm also looking at the knots and thinking I should excavate these and fill them with something that won't bleed through the paint later on. There will also be a bit of filling required to fair up some surface areas due to tearout.

This is still pretty much of an experimental build going with a bifold configuration and it may not yet pass spousal approval. Either way I don't think I'll be remaking these doors using better timber later on. Maybe I should have sourced some quality WRC for these to start with.

Hi Franklin

some thoughts ...

Because you are planning on painting the doors, you could replace the knots with "dutchmen" planed down to be level with the rest of the door. For the bigger knots, there's no reason not to make the dutchmen the full thickness of the door. Once planed flush and painted they will be invisible.

Where the gap between the styles and rails is significant, you could apply a veneer to the low side of the joint rather than plane down the high side. Some years ago I bought a skate board kit -- 7 sheets of 1.6 mm thick veneer -- which I use for when I need to do something similar.

Thanks Ian. The nature of the knots are mostly oblique and shallow so a few inlays is all that should be required, apart from one loose knot that went full depth in the middle of a mortise that popped out. I thought about drilling that one out and using it as a pegged mortise hole.

The visualization projector in my head is making the look of applying a veneer to even up the joints look whacko on the stiles. It might work on the side the rails are low, but not high. I think I'll just use a plane to clean them up. I think a production shop would just pass the whole door though a thickness sander.

Cheers,

For the knots where you're only concern is bleed through you can just give them a coat of shellac before you paint and that will stop that.
Regards Rod.

Thanks Rod, I'll give that a try on some of the smaller tight spots. The intention is to paint the doors white and I had trouble on a knotty pine door once before. Is shellac suitable to use as a prep under any paint type?
Cheers,

Originally Posted by Fuzzie

The visualization projector in my head is making the look of applying a veneer to even up the joints look whacko on the stiles. It might work on the side the rails are low, but not high. I think I'll just use a plane to clean them up. I think a production shop would just pass the whole door though a thickness sander.

a production shop would do just that and then the shop would have either skipped the molding, or pinned them on at the end.

With the veneer,
one option is to plane and sand the high spots out so that they appear to be even with the rest of the joint.

The veneer essentially acts as a solid wood filler that you sand / plane down to blend with the rest of the joint.

When you're finished it's all covered by paint so invisible. (In reality you could just bog out the difference and sand it smooth -- but using bog as a "fix all" generally offends me. )

Hi Fuzzy,
Yes shellac is still the best sealer ever it can go under anything texter on the walls that bleeds through anything,a quick dash of shellac and paint over with water or turps based and for those bleeding knots same deal. All the developments in paint and good old shellac is still the best sealer.
Regards Rod.

That's good to know Rod. Filed for future reference!

Ian, I cleaned up the joints by planing this morning. (A good test in this humid heat to check the PE's have resolved. ) Thankfully I think the mouldings still look OK, but the grain changes across the boards resulted in a bit more tear out. Nothing a final sand with a ROS won't fix. Fairing the joints seemed to work best using a longer #6, the #4 seemed too aggressive on just the high spots.

I then did the layout for the meeting rebates and started to think the 20mm allowance looks a bit deep, particularly when I tried to run a 20mm bead on a scrap for testing. I've since been down to the wreckers and found some french doors to measure and found that generally the rebate depth is usually only about 12mm. I'll trim the meeting stiles now before continuing.

Cheers,
Franklin

<edit> In the clear light of the next day... Trimming the width is not an option if I still want the doors to fit the doorway </edit>

Fitting these doors is a bit of challenge! Not just having the 2 leaves to deal with, but the old hardwood jambs are wavy and not entirely plumb either. Just a little more to come off the closing stile and all will be sweet.
hung2.jpg

Anyway, the proof of concept is in the hanging and passes spousal approval.

It became obvious when straighten the jamb for the hinge side that there had originally been a door fitted to this opening. It was hinged on the other side and I guess removed for the same reason I didn't want to put a normal door back in that position - it would be an annoyance accessing the built in cupboards when open.

I also did not want to install a normal french door set here, because even the smaller leaf opening would still foul the cabinet access somewhat. These doors will be closed rarely, occasionally in winter to minimize draughts and keep the warmth from the heater in the area and sometimes in summer with the A/C on to keep the cool in. For the other 97+% of the time the doors will be open. (The TV area flows through to the rest of the downstairs open plan kitchen and living rooms.)

When opened back against the TV console there is minimal protrusion into the room and nothing will really be affected by the doors being open to this side all the time.

hung1.jpg hung3.jpg

The only quandary at the moment is what sort of lock and handle will work best. I'm thinking a roller latch might work with a low profile pull.

I like them. Well thought out for the need in this location.

A long road, but a successful journey!

Good job, looks the part, and speaking from personal experience, the small flaws that no-one but you see will soon become less obvious to your eyes, too.

You learn a lot on a project like this, especially how to recover from minor blunders (again, speaking from personal experience! ), all useful at some time in the future....

What's next??
Cheers,

I agree with IanW, great job

Hi Ian,

Not quite complete yet.

Here they are fully installed with all screws in the hinges and the bottom edge painted! There were many little knots to fix and in the end I simply decided to drill them out and fill. I used a forstner bit on the larger knots and 1/4" spade bit which allowed me to go control the depth to winkle out the various size small knots.

The glazing was a bit of an issue. I had some old glass from a sliding window I had salvaged from our kitchen reno. Try as I may I just couldn't get the glass to break along my score lines. I think 40 years of daily full sun to shade thermal tempering did something to that glass. In the end I reluctantly had a glazier cut fresh glass to fit. Being cheap, instead of buying the 6mm quad at Bunnies to fix the panes, I bought half the quantity of 6x12 half round at the same price and slit it on the bandsaw. That caused a bit of an issue mitering the corner joins as the 'new' 6mm quad was a bit variable in dimension.

For the rest of the hardware I had decided on using a roller catch and just a pull on the inside. When I was looking for the roller catch I found these rare earth magnet latches and decided to give them a try. Two magnets are used, one in the door edge and one slightly offset in the jamb, they really do pull the door shut quickly!

latch.jpginstalled.jpg

I'm starting the paint job today. As to the next project, I've been thinking of making a stand for my printer. Sounds dull, but I'm considering something like a Georgian waterfall library or po stand.

Cheers,

Great job on those doors, especially with recycled wood and mostly hand tools.
A really good build along.
Regards
John