Ledged and Brace Door - Green Timber

[Fitzroy]

Morning all.

I'm currently renovating an outhouse and need to replace the door. I'm going to replace with a similar door which is ledge and braced. I'm using larch cladding from a local sawmill for facias and soffits. I can get timber in the right dimensions for the L&B door but it would be fresh/recently sawn and hence pretty green. It's an outhouse door that is not needing to be a perfect fit so I can cope with some movement as it dries.

Is this a realistic option or am I setting myself up for disaster?

Fitz.

 

[Sgian Dubh]

Is this a realistic option or am I setting myself up for disaster?

Probably the latter as the wood dries warps and shrinks after you've made the door. You might perhaps buy what you need, plus 20 -30% extra, sticker the stuff up neatly and weight the top down in a pile under a shelter with good air movement, let it dry some to around 18 -20% MC and use whatever is half decent from that.

Alternatively, you could buy some stuff that's already been dried, ideally air dried, but kiln dried would be okay with sufficient allowance made for expansion as the wood gains moisture. Slainte.

 

[Fitzroy]

Probably the latter as the wood dries warps and shrinks after you've made the door. You might perhaps buy what you need, plus 20 -30% extra, sticker the stuff up neatly and weight the top down in a pile under a shelter with good air movement, let it dry some to around 18 -20% MC and use whatever is half decent from that.

Alternatively, you could buy some stuff that's already been dried, ideally air dried, but kiln dried would be okay with sufficient allowance made for expansion as the wood gains moisture. Slainte.

I thought that would be the case, but thought I'd ask in-case someone thought it'd be ok with X and Y considerations. Looks like I'll be making a temp door whilst I wait for MC to drop to a useable level.

F.

 

[nickds1]

I did this recently for a cellar door as part of my workshop rebuild - big & heavy plus the cellar can get damp and it's exposed to SW weather - it's also a sort of stable door. The top bit opens outwards and the bottom inwards - this is due to where the floor above is. Made it as one piece on the cellar floor, then split it for the top & bottom halves and made a template to cut the top bit to fit the arch.

I used rough-sawn green tanalised 1" thick planks, but machined a slight overlap between the planks to allow for movement. I stained the overlaps before building the door so that in the summer, with shrinkage, I didn't get white lines. You can see a bit of the overlap at the bottom of the first picture.

The whole door is now stained with Sovereign Classic Ebony.

With the routed overlap of about 15mm, the door is always weatherproof and looks good whatever gets thrown at it. When assembled, even though the wood was damp, I still left a couple of mm between each plank. Stainless screws on the inside, stainless coach bolts for the hinges.

I should really do a thread on the rebuild of this workshop.

When the weather's nice, it's better to be outside!

 

[mikej460]

I thought that would be the case, but thought I'd ask in-case someone thought it'd be ok with X and Y considerations. Looks like I'll be making a temp door whilst I wait for MC to drop to a useable level.

F.

Or buy air dried? If you buy kiln dried you will need to stick it until it stabilises with outside temperatures. You can sometimes find air dried on facebook market place or if you want either in oak look here....
Planed All Round European Oak Timber (britishhardwoods.co.uk)

 

[Jones]

If you bring the timber into your house it will dry quite quickly a month for 1" softwood should be enough. Door length pieces will fit under the bed .