building big panel doors - whats the sequence please?

[SlowSteve]

Hello,

I am in the middle of planning out building two new internal doors. They are big (BIG) heavy duty doors - they are really exterior quality, but I have 8 doors the same in the house and 2 different - this is annoying Mrs SlowSteve, which leads to more tasks of my jobs list.

The doors are ( I think ) 70 years old and made of Siberian larch. They are big things - 37" x ^ 6' 11". They are 6 panel rail and stile designs with panels. Thickness is 1 7/8". Top/bottom rails are 4" (including the ogee) and the mid rail is 8"

All the edges are routed out to allow clean glue lines and for the panels. I have managed to track down an exact router set from Infinity.

However - the doors are also through-tenon'd - the top and bottom rail are single tenons and the mid rail is a double tenon. I can understand why as the doors are ferociously heavy and a standard panel door glue up wouldn't be a long term option.

Here's where I get stuck - whats the process for actually building this door?

Do I cut the mortice and tenon's first, and then route the rail and stiles and the recesses for the panels? If I do this, I can't see a way of not cutting into the tenons.

If I do the routing for the rail and stiles first, I can't see how I do the tenon's either.

Or - could it be that it's some sort of odd construction - perhaps the door is build like a standard panels door with a loose tenon, and the tenon is driven in afterwards as almost a "through loose tenon" - although I have never head of this.

Any advice you can provide would be gratefully received.

Steve

 

[dzj]

If you're new to all this, then just make a simple mortise and tenon frame for the door (skip any routing, rebates and grooves)
and later apply moulding on each side of panel. The moulding should be glued only to the rails and styles, not to the panel.
Mitred sticking is also an option, but I think it's a bit more difficult for a beginner.

 

[Racers]

+1 for applied mouldings, I made a pair of 40 1/2" doors the same way and its much easer to apply the mouldings afterwards.

Pete

 

[SlowSteve]

Well - I have to say that seems easier.

I assume I cope the mouldings like I would with skirting boards?

Steve

 

[mseries]

Are the tenons the full height of the rails ? Usually they are shorter so the groove for the panel doesn't intefere.

 

[heimlaga]

Hmmmmm.....to me this is a "standard" panel door and the tennonless ones are mere pretenders.

The traditional way would be:
1. Cut the stiles about 10 cm too long and the rails about 2 cm too long.
2. Mortise the stiles. Through mortises of cause. The tennons are always narrower than the rails to allow for the grooves. To get the width of the tennons on the central rail you need to deduct two times the depth of the grooves from the width of the central rail. Deduct one time the depth of the groove and the depth of the haunch from the width of the top and bottom rails to get the width of their tennons. 5 cm of extra lenght on each end of the stiles prevent them from splitting from the mortise through to the end.
3. Cut the decorative profile and the groove in the stiles
4. Cut the tennons in the ends of all rails. The distance from tennon shoulder to tennon shoulder should be the distance between the stiles plus two times the width of the decorative profile on the stiles.
5. Cut the groove and the decoration profile in the rails.
6. Use back saw and chisel to cut and trim the mitres on stiles and rails. The decoration profiles meet in a mitre and are NOT coped the way they are on modern factory made doors.
7. Make the panels. The grain direction in a door panel is normally vertical. In vertical direction there must be a tight fit in the bottom of the groove as this is what keeps the door from sagging. In horisontal direction there must be an allowance for swelling.
8. Chamfer the edges of the tennon ens on all rail. This will help them find their way in the mortises during assembly.
9.Assemble the door and clamp it together. Peg the corners together. The oldtimers used nu glue in the corner joints but you might want to use some on theese super heavy doors
10. Trim the protruding tennon ends and stile ends..... and you have a finished door.

I have only repaired this type of doors. Not yet made one from scratch......but I have figured out how to do it when repairing old ones.
Hope you get some help from my not so good description.
Good luck!

 

[RobinBHM]

I usually make internal panel doors with square section, groove the stiles and rails to suit mdf board thickness and assemble the doors with the panels.

Once assembled I would then mitre in panel beads to both sides.

Ideally I would make the panels 12mm thick, use a 1/2" chisel and position the mortice in the groove (if your groove has to be wider than the mortice it can still be done, but there will be some gaps to fill on head and bottom of door).

Note that the marking out for the mortice needs to be made smaller by the same amount as the groove depth as this will get machined out of the tenon. (known in joinery as tenon in rebate).

If you are doing a proifle and scribe the same thing applies, except you will form a rebate and put panel in after and bead up. Panelled doors probably cant have a scribe due to the moulding so these are mason mitred.

I would make a rod and the set is worked from rebate sizes

The bottom rail is a bit small for a big door.

Definitely use through tenons, mortice from both sides, make outside mortice a bit wider and taper back to allow for tenon expansion if you are wedging.

The mid rail is double tenoned as a full tenon would weaken the stiles

 

[AndyT]

I've only made lightweight doors but I have read a tip that might be helpful on big heavy doors. Apparently the established assembly method was to get all the pieces together, dry, with the mortices only inserted a third of the way in. Then go round with the glue onto just the exposed two thirds. Cramp together, hammer in the wedges.

It sounds a lot more sensible than struggling to assemble large components all dripping glue from their ends.

 

[Wildman]

router the rails and styles then mortise both styles and rails and use a loose tenon you can wedge in place if required, problem solved

 

[Zeddedhed]

Many moons ago when I ran a building contracting company we once ordered some odd sized doors from a local joiner.
I happened to pay him a visit whilst they were being made and asked to take a look.

What I saw was quite a surprise - the doors had been given the tongue and groove treatment to accept the panels - all good.
The strange thing was that they then assembled, glued and cramped the door and once dry they drilled and chopped in 200mm deep mortices through the stiles and into the rails and then whacked in some 200 x 15 loose tenons with glue and then pinned them through with hardwood dowels.

I must confess my first reaction was "what a bunch of cowboys". The workshop foreman assured me that it was a perfectly acceptable method and reluctantly I let it go.

I visited the property where they installed about 5 years later and they are as good as the day they were installed. Bearing in mind that they've had 5 years of heavy use (young children) slamming, kids swinging on them etc. it would seem that the method works.

Anyone else seen it done this way?

 

[Wildman]

see my post above, quite common in the USA apparently, I saw a video one time cannot find it now for the life of me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORuOdjasMo
further ideas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvhKXLrySSQ
and fixed tenons but extended.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1waLzWFvB0

 

[dzj]

Many moons ago when I ran a building contracting company we once ordered some odd sized doors from a local joiner.
I happened to pay him a visit whilst they were being made and asked to take a look.

What I saw was quite a surprise - the doors had been given the tongue and groove treatment to accept the panels - all good.
The strange thing was that they then assembled, glued and cramped the door and once dry they drilled and chopped in 200mm deep mortices through the stiles and into the rails and then whacked in some 200 x 15 loose tenons with glue and then pinned them through with hardwood dowels.
....
Anyone else seen it done this way?

If the panels are engineered materials and are glued in the grooves, loose tenons can be an option,
particularly for interior doors.
But if you're making traditional paneled doors, wedged through tenons is the way to go.