Interior doors

[aschaeffer]

I am exploring the idea of building some interior doors for my house. I've been doing some research on materials, designs, techniques, etc. I've come across this image of a door built from a mix of solid wood, engineered wood and veneer. I like the fact that this would result in lighter doors and lower costs but also want them to last a long time and look good.

I am just wondering what your thoughts are on using an engineered product with edge banding and veneer to build quality doors. Also, more specifically, I've never done any veneering and am slightly confused about the raised panel shown in the image. It obviously has a slight curve to the edges of the panel and I don't know how that type of veneering is done. Do I need to use a vacuum bag to achieve a look like that?

Thanks for you help!

[Bombarde16]

"Light" and "engineered wood" don't generally spring to mind together. Veneered MDF (which it looks like they've used for those panels) is definitely on the heavy side. Not that that's a bad thing, though. Mass in a door helps cut down on sound transmission, for example.

I'm certain that these doors look lovely and are well constructed. My concern would be how pretty they'll look after being dinged, dented and scratched for ten years. Solid wood construction takes on charm as it weathers; but once you rip through veneer and expose the fiberboard underneath...well, we all know what that looks like. If you're going to go this route, make your finish surfaces good and thick. Charles Neil uses heavy laminates (insert a heaping dose of southern accent scorn for "...that thin stuff, veneer") on his bed rails.

You are correct: Any sort of curved, veneered surface implies a vacuum press. I wondered if these might even be covered with thermoplastic.

Honestly, the only reason I'd build doors is if I want or need something that just isn't available anywhere else. What inspired you to want to make a door?

[Beechwood Chip]

You are correct: Any sort of curved, veneered surface implies a vacuum press.

I think you'd need a form to go in the curve; you can't just pop the curved core and the veneer into a vacuum bag.

David Marks has a video where he does a curved glue up with a vacuum press. I think he builds a jig to build a form to hold the pieces in the press. I'm at work so I don't have the URL handy. He was building a curved modern dining chair, if I recall correctly.

[aschaeffer]

"Light" and "engineered wood" don't generally spring to mind together. Veneered MDF (which it looks like they've used for those panels) is definitely on the heavy side. Not that that's a bad thing, though. Mass in a door helps cut down on sound transmission, for example.

I'm certain that these doors look lovely and are well constructed. My concern would be how pretty they'll look after being dinged, dented and scratched for ten years. Solid wood construction takes on charm as it weathers; but once you rip through veneer and expose the fiberboard underneath...well, we all know what that looks like. If you're going to go this route, make your finish surfaces good and thick. Charles Neil uses heavy laminates (insert a heaping dose of southern accent scorn for "...that thin stuff, veneer") on his bed rails.

You are correct: Any sort of curved, veneered surface implies a vacuum press. I wondered if these might even be covered with thermoplastic.

Honestly, the only reason I'd build doors is if I want or need something that just isn't available anywhere else. What inspired you to want to make a door?

I am not necessarily looking to build something that isn't available anywhere else but I do get a great amount of satisfaction when I complete a project and it is functional and useful. To see the doors throughout the house and to know they are my creation is why I am inspired to build doors. I have only built some basic boxes and workshop shelves, bench, storage so this level of finish would be a first for me.

You bring up a good point about being dinged, dented and scratched. That is something I did not consider.

Thanks for your response.

[Bombarde16]

As to the cost of veneering such things, this is a whole 'nother can of annelids and the biggest question is how much you value your time. By going with veneers, you're setting yourself several stages back in the construction process: i.e. you'll be spending hours and hours just to make the raw materials to make the project. I ran into this with a set of bookshelves I did for my daughter. I used construction lumber but wanted thick, quartersawn stock. So I spent hours culling through the pile at the borg, then hours ripping the boards into staves, then hours gluing those back together (rotated 90 degrees) and finally more time and a set of planer blades to get them true and ready to work. All this just to create, in effect, the lumber that I would use.

The shelves turned out beautiful, my board foot cost was next to nothing and it's a fun trick that nobody believes me when I tell them that they're just 2x10s from Lowes. But that's a large chunk of my life that I'll never have back and that time could have been saved if I had just sprung for furniture grade, solid wood. The Schwarz puts it thus: The most valuable commodity we have is not the wood, but the time we have to work it.

Big factories can operate on a scale large enough that it's economical to do everything in veneers. But for hobbyists and artisans, the only reason I'd look to veneer the panels of a residential door is if I wanted some astronomically expensive or unobtainably rare exotic wood.