Exterior Door

[Chestnut]

My Grandparents-in-law (is this a typically way to describe this?) live in an odd house that is slab on grade and concrete block walls. The doors that were installed when it was built are also odd. They are a very thin 3 panel door and do little to protect against cold winter weather. They requested a new door, initially i was going to look into a pre-hung and slide it in the existing opening. That was a no-go as the opening is an odd size and no standard available door will fit. Also it's concrete block with no room to expand the opening. So being a good grandson by marriage, I offered to make a new door to fit the opening.

Chosen wood is Western Red Cedar. I can buy rough sawn from Menards, It's like Lowes or HD but green. If you don't have experience with the store they have an outdoor lumber yard that you can drive strait up to the pile and load from. It's a wonderful convenience not considering their prices are usually 11% lower . To get the door to the thickness i wanted. I ended up ripping 1_7/8" wide strips and edge gluing them together.

The long stiles ended up being around 6.5" wide. I went a bit wider than normal to make sure the lock set would fit between the panel portions. It also made the panel dimensions easier to cut from the lumber lengths without huge waste.

The rails were constructed in the same manner.

Once all the rough material was glued, using tightbond 3 because exterior, I jointed and planed everything down. The finished thickness is 1_3/4" because that's what the window is calling for. After making everything strait and square i cut in grooves for the door panels. I did this at the table saw flipping the board so the panel is perfectly centered.

I squared the grooves with a chisel and installed weather striping. This will keep the panel centered in the door, allow for expansion and contraction, but also prevent drafts around the panel. Probably overkill but it was easy and inexpensive.

For the rails the groove was cut the same way but was able to be cut through. I miss judged the panel size and groove depth so I ended up having to use 2 layers of weather striping to fill the extra groove.

Once the grooves were figured out I laid out joinery. For this I'm doing floating M&T joinery. I used multiple plunges lined up to make a 2.5" wide mortise that was 50mm deep. Mortise stock is 12mm.

The only deviation is the bottom rail. I made that rail 9" wide and figured I should split the tenon into two and make them a bit larger. So there I went with two 1.5" wide mortises.

Joinery complete, raised panel next. I started by gluing flat sawn material to make 2 panels that were not the size I wanted them to be.... oh well. I was making the door larger than I needed it and was goign to cut it to size on site. Now I'll just have less material to cut off on site. I was able to shift the top and bottom rail to account for the reduced panel size.

I used the dado stack to fit the panel to the groove. After that was complete I wanted to do some sort of raised look but was getting stumped on how to do it. Then i remember that you can tilt the table saw arbor. I tilted the blade to 30 degrees. adjusted the blade height, adjusted the fence and cut a simple bevel.

I didn't have a spare plate for zero clearance. The stock plate wouldn't work. So pucker factor at 11 I want forward. It went smoothly. I kept my hands near the miter slot, so far away from the blade. It also wasn't a through cut and there was no off cut to become a missile. You can see the profile created at the top of the image below. I forgot to take a picture of the panel after sanding before assembly. I'm going to have to keep this technique in the back of my mind as it worked really well. I like the results.

After this was door assembly. This involved glue (Titebond 3), clamps (parallel 36" type), a hammer, and swearing. So a typical assembly. After assembly comes window but that was on order so the door sat in my shop for a week while I waited. I had yard work and a shed to organize so I took a break.

Window came. Size was larger than I expected. I thought I ordered a 22" x 36" window. It ended up being a 24" x 37" window. I never knew how these assemblies worked so here is a picture of the window with half the frame removed.

I took measurements and cut the opening a bit larger. Once done the window fit like a glove.

I love how the cedar turned out. Cutting staves and gluing them so the wood was all vertical grain leaves an awesome effect. I wish I'd done the same with the panels so they matched. I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to finish the inside of the door. The outside face will be pained for sure but I'm on the fence if I wanted to do a clear coat on the inside or paint it. I'm leaning clear coat finish, they will be proud of the door and will likely show it off. If it's painted it won't look like much.

More to come. I still need to finish prep, finish, and hang the door.

[Chet]

Do you know anything about the history of the house?  The odd sizes of the door and things sounds like it may have been "hand built" by the original owner and things were built to function more then built to a standard.

On 9/14/2021 at 9:09 AM, Chestnut said:

This will keep the panel centered in the door, allow for expansion and contraction, but also prevent drafts around the panel.

Probably keep them from rattling during certain times of the year too.

[treeslayer]

Great work as usual Drew, as a new front door for our house is in the near future, QS white oak, using “green” cedar what concerns do you have about wood movement ? ie warping with temp and humidity changes? Oh yeah and see if you can talk them out of painting it, beautiful wood 

[curlyoak]

On 9/14/2021 at 1:22 PM, treeslayer said:

new front door for our house is in the near future, QS white oak

I tried a front door of QS white oak. It works up north but not here ion mildew Florida. Regardless of aggressively sealing the door including the ends mildew would get under the finish. It took a year or so to be ugly. I took the door down to bare wood and added a researched chemical treatment and it didn't matter. For the last 3 or 4 years with the right replacement, same design and used the old stained glass using Sapele. Looks perfect. No mold or mildew under the finish. That being said, I know it is the wood of choice up north. And lasts.

[Chestnut]

29 minutes ago, treeslayer said:

Great work as usual Drew, as a new front door for our house is in the near future, QS white oak, using “green” cedar what concerns do you have about wood movement ? ie warping with temp and humidity changes? Oh yeah and see if you can talk them out of painting it, beautiful wood 

I'm not sure how long the lumber was on the rack but my moisture meter was on hand for this project. I have some similar WRC in my shop, EMC for 50% humidity wasn't too far off of what was purchased. One piece was quite a bit higher (near 35% MC) but i set that aside to cut into only if needed. The rest of the boards where around 10%, I can't remember the EMC number, I'd have to check again. For wood movement I left 1/2" in the groove with the weather striping foam for expansion. I doubt it's ever going to expand that much. I don't expect contraction even in winter as with it being an exterior door there will always be a fair amount of moisture near it. The difference in EMC from 15 F & 65% humidity to 95 F and 65% humidity is 1% EMC lower at 95 F. Our outside relative humidity stays relatively consistent all things considered.

1 hour ago, Chet said:

Do you know anything about the history of the house?  The odd sizes of the door and things sounds like it may have been "hand built" by the original owner and things were built to function more then built to a standard.

I wish i had pictures because it does seem very custom or hand built. That makes it sound extravagant but it's not really the case. It's Cinder block exterior walls, The exterior doors are wooden raised panel but the panels are 1/4" ply. Door frames are held in place with a 3/4" threaded rod embedded into the block. The hardware is a large square nut and square washer. It's quite crude honestly but it's well made. House is about 50 feet from a highway and you can't hear any road noise.

1 hour ago, Chet said:

Probably keep them from rattling during certain times of the year too.

That was a secondary goal. The foam weather strip worked great.

[wtnhighlander]

That's a cool technique for the panel profile. How much dado can your arbor hold? Looks wider than what I can stack.

[Chestnut]

13 hours ago, wtnhighlander said:

That's a cool technique for the panel profile. How much dado can your arbor hold? Looks wider than what I can stack.

That was 5/8" loaded. I think i can do the full 13/16", but I've never found a need to go that large. Nearly every dado i cut is multiple passes, mostly because it makes getting an accurate fit easier.

[bradpotts]

Turned out great. I'm sure they will love it! 

[sisiniaasthma]

You did a cool job! To be honest, I've never considered cedar planks as a base for creating exterior doors. All the doors that I ordered or bought ready-made were made of the dense oak core. My elderly parents also have a strange house built by some strange builders. Each of their doors is of a non-standard size. None of the modern doors in the stores fit into their doorways. In winter, parents often felt drafts near the front door. Last summer, I ordered a four-panel oak door of non-standard size on https://www.ukoakdoors.co.uk/internal-oak-doors so that they're ready for the arrival of cold weather. After the winter holidays, I ordered them all the interior doors (7 pieces) too. I'm glad I renovated their house this way. What do you say about the quality of cedar compared to oak?

[Chestnut]

I wish I'd have taken an in place picture. The door looks pretty good in place. There were a few hiccups but nothing major.