Ledge door

[AJBaker]

We've been living in an old house since the summer and it's still a bit of a wreck. Our room was still missing a door, and there was a nasty cold draught coming in from under that door (which leads to the cellar). The original plan was to make a four panel door similar to the ones that are already in the house. I haven't got any electrical tools beyond an electric drill, but my planes and chisels are sharp and I'm getting better at using them.

However, time has been limited with our newborn daughter and work/studies. I decided to make a ledge door using the information in the Lost Art Press book on the subject. The door needed to be quick and easy to build, but I still wanted it to be solid and aesthetically pleasing.

The door frame I made from reclaimed pine boards that must be many decades old. With hand planes and winding sticks I got one side flat with two perpendicular and parallel edges. I was going to use a slot mortice or a dovetail, but I ended up just screwing the frame together.

For the boards I bought pine tongue and groove boards from the local DIY shop. I planed all the surfaces and added a bead with my Record 050 (great tool).

I used other pine boards for ledges and fastened them with clenched nails. I used 70mm nails from Rivierre in France. Luckily, I live close enough to the border with France to have free shipping.

Hardware is from Amazon and works fine.

 

[Chris Jones]

Good job! It`s great that the clenched nail heads are sequenced as that would be a major 'trigger' if they weren't, don`t you think? Lol. I see you have one of those modern apprentices who are keen to work hard these days!!! Congrats...

 

[Cabinetman]

Impressive piece of work for a newbie? using only hand tools.
“Put wood int ole” as they say in Yorkshire.
Ian

 

[AJBaker]

Good job! It`s great that the clenched nail heads are sequenced as that would be a major 'trigger' if they weren't, don`t you think? Lol. I see you have one of those modern apprentices who are keen to work hard these days!!! Congrats...

Thanks!
I really wasn't sure how to sequence the nails. The books usually show three nails per board into each ledge, but the boards are usually wider than what I had, the ones I used are thinner than I would have liked (9 boards for a 2'6" door).
Three nails would obviously have been too much, but even two per board seemed excessive (72 nails in total, and they aren't cheap). Just one nail, however, wouldn't have been enough to resist racking. I came up with this solution and I'm pleased with the look!

Originally, I had the outside boards held on with two screws into each ledge, as recommended by the book (c.f. the photo with the dog). It looked a bit weird from the outside, however, so I replaced them with nails and added a single screw between them.

 

[Fitzroy]

Wonderful, great job!