I couldn't wait any longer to get started on the cross bracing this morning, so hoping the glue had set enough I set about marking out. I wanted to go for a right-angled cut that was pressure fit in place. I lay out the bracing piece across the door to judge the first right angle by eye which I marked out with the framing square.
I could then put the cut side into its slot and offer up the other side to mark it out. I actually left the doors resting on the clamps to give them some clearance from the bench, with the intention of clamping the braces to the door to steady them as I cut them.
I felt the handsaw would be best for this purpose as I didn't think I could get the required accuracy with the mitre saw. As it happened they were pretty much all way off anyway. In fact the first one I cut completely missed the corner so I've got a funny looking brace on one door
After installing the braces, I took off the secondary frame's limbs one by one to attach the hinges to the limb and the door at once and then hanging as a unit
I used a self-centring drill bit to stop the hinges from pulling out of place
Before cutting out the holes for the hinge bolts. To mark the positions of these, I reached for my favourite lipstick
At this point, I could set about hanging the doors. This was achieved by pushing the frame limb back in its housing before enlisting the help of my multipurpose router lift (a scissor jack) to lift the inside of the door at a roughly 90 degree opening. I cranked this up until a level I placed on the top rail read "good enough"
After the doors were in place, I went to plane off the overlap. I marked the overlap by placing one door in front of the other and scribing the line. The amount to plane off each door was half that scribe line. At 12mm this was a little more than I had accounted for (I think the door frame had swollen in the rain) so I took the left hand door off again and put the frame limb through the thicknesser instead of having to take an awkward amount off the door
I could focus my attention on the gaps between the braces and the stiles and rails after this. I mixed up wood glue and sawdust left over from routing the tongue and groove panelling that I had kept for this purpose before applying with an old credit card
Between you and me, I didn't leave my glue up clamped long enough and I've noticed some wobbly mortices. I don't really know what to do about it now as they are all hung up but I filled the gaps with the wood and saw dust combination and have clamped them tight. Hopefully the surface tension increase with the filler will be enough to hold the joints. The insides of the doors will be skinned with 18mm ply (or 12, but I think 18) to take all my T-stak boxes (I'm going for around 18 boxes) that I'll be making cabinets for on the hinge sides of the doors and the lock side of the doors will take longer items that I need to grab often but aren't so heavy such as spirit levels. The idea being, if I'm working on site on a given day, I can open the doors and everything I will need will be right there. I'll add this to the thread in the coming months
For now though, here's the doors as of this evening. I still need to add the two mortice locks and decide on door pulls, meaning that the gliderol will need to stay in place for the next week or so while I decide on this. Next up is to paint them and trim them. The drawbridge sill at the bottom also needs fixing in place
Thanks for your interest during this build and I'd be grateful to hear your feedback (good and bad)
