Alder barn door (finally!)


MisterDrow

Recommended Posts

2 hours ago, Lester Burnham said:
That mortise is dead-on, elf. When you set that up, did you clamp some stops on there to make sure you don't go past the mark or just free hand it? I usually use a forstner bit for the ends of the mortise when I can.

I "drilled" the ends first with the router and then routed out the middle somewhat freehand but using my mortise jig I made. No stops. Though I think I'll use stops for the rest of them to save my nerves.

Also, impressed you recognized the 'elf' reference in my username @Lester Burnham (unless you've mentioned it before and I forgot... which is entirely possible). Fellow nerds unite!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I did. I told you, in another thread, that Drizzt is one of my favorite characters. Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim, I roll a dark elf named Drizzt every single time.

That's right! I forgot about that!

First tenon fit and done last night. I really need to reconfigure my tenoning jig to fit my new fence. This one took way more finessing than I like to get to fit. Still, for a first tenon, I'll take it.

085314324d394ca6760d6d43e66d72c4.jpg

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Man... this is way more slow going than I wanted it to be. Of course it doesn't help that we've had the worst winter storm in 20 years here in the past week.

Here was the starting temp in the garage today. After turning on my heater it got up to about 45 with 45% humidity. Felt quite nice after it being below zero so much here.

337a41fd92c71b046a5458d9de2d9e77.jpg

Obligatory woodworking music pic... Anubis Gate is a progressive band... sort of a modern Rush, if you will... but harder rock.

7ed531cf349a9130a965fc4dff2c8abb.jpg

Didn't get a pic of marking out all of the rest of the tenons. A couple of the mortises were slightly longer than the original measurements, two of them were slightly off center. This made cutting the tenons a little more time consuming as I had to adjust things for each one. It is what it is, though. Modified my old tenoning jig to cut them.

0fe59d644c86e9eb1c3e3d48c5b3eb2b.jpg

Hand cut the tenons to width... took care to stay to the outside of my marks.

e5d299a518cfae92f87186e61f088a54.jpg

fdcc77e6cfb987ee97e2eb7b50e7ccaf.jpg

b209f9b046298d655f78198d444c867b.jpg

A little tight but not a bad fit in terms of thickness. Just need to round them all off and make sure each fits properly before glue-up.

7fce35c0f9af2de2dac403d286e04746.jpg

And here's all three rails with the tenons cut and ready for final fitting.

46064dfa0f5c91d5d340f4386dc9d064.jpg

Turning in for the night to have some drinks and snacks with the wife while we watch a movie. Hopefully I'll have the frame all glued up tomorrow and rabbeted for the panels.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, last night was stressful. Dry fitted the frame, had to make a few adjustments to the tenons, but it came out okay.

a78a5f26bacf0ae6b0d638285e3e5b0f.jpg

Then I applied glue to the tenons and started putting it all together... that's where things went wrong. Some of the joints that fit nice and tight before all of a sudden didn't want to close up. I was able to pull some of them tight with clamps but ended up with a couple gaps I just couldn't close. Having already applied glue (which had begun to set because I messed with it so long) there wasn't much I could do at that point. I ended up with a gap on one of them that's slightly smaller than 1/16".

7063f9ee2b45c0a3392a86873c7bf130.jpg

I'm wondering if I can cut some thin strips of wood and glue them in to fill the gap and try to hide the mistake. Honestly, I'm just sick over this.

Any advice?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Man, that's a tough one. I'm sure someone on here can give you some advice. When I was putting a bed together last year, I had the same thing happen but I was able to persuade the joint by placing a board one the side of it and blasting the hell out of it with a small sledge hammer. Are your tenons exactly the same length as the mortise depth? Maybe there was too much glue and it had no way to get out of the way of the tenon?

I think my shoulder might not have been fully square on one side of the tenon. On closer inspection the other side of that is together and flat, no problem. This is the back of the door so I'll figure out some fix for it but at least it won't be seen all of the time.

I'm cutting the panels today and will rabbet the back of the frame with my router for the panel to sit in. Going back, I wish I'd have gone with my initial idea to cut a groove for them to sit inside the frame but I'm here now so I'll make the best of it. The panels will only be attached at the top and bottom of each with a single Brad in the center of the board. They'll be connected to each other via tongue and groove without glue so they can expand as necessary.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 weeks later...
  • 3 months later...

This project has been the bane of my existence... and it's my own fault for doing things out of order and rushing a few things. This was supposed to be a Christmas gift for my wife... that's a huge sore spot in our house right now.

A few months ago I got a fancy new tongue and groove bit set for my router

IMG_1180.thumb.JPG.ad905784ee0a5d8118c1a20c685b1571.JPG

Router the panels for assembly... really wishing I had done this in a table rather than by hand. What a pain.

IMG_1181.thumb.JPG.2889e1e4c2aa56b5ce79232bb25461b5.JPG

Not sure where the pic of the groove cuts went that I did after this but whatever... you guys know what they look like.

So, back to the awful issue of the frame. I don't know why I thought it would be easier to assemble the frame, cut a rabbet for the panels, and put them in afterwards. Chalk it up to inexperience, I guess. I made a mess of things trying to cut the rabbet and got so discouraged that I couched the project for months now. That and remember the issue of ill-fitting tenons? Ugh.

7063f9ee2b45c0a3392a86873c7bf130.thumb.jpg.058453118216313726c0a1c4303d69d9.jpg

So, yeah... finally decided what to do. 

I'm going to take a circular saw and cut the frame apart at the joints. I'll lose a tiny bit of length in doing so but I need to fix this properly. I'm going to cut the rabbets properly (I'd just go get more alder and re-cut them with panel grooves but my supplier is out right now and isn't sure when they are getting more in) and then cut mortises in each piece for loose-tenon joinery instead. That should make up for the loss of tenon length in the rails and still provide strength. I'll then reassemble the frame and put the panels in. I'll need to cut some trim pieces to make the tops and bottoms of each panel look decent but that's better than nothing at this point and that part will be on the back-side of the door and not seen from the main view side of it in the house.

I'll document how it all goes and share it with you all here. This project was very far out of my comfort zone and I've learned a lot... the hard way. Sometimes that's how it goes, though. I definitely won't make the same mistakes on future projects.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.