Building a door can be a labor of love or just plain labor if it is to be just a utility door. A utility door is constructed to perform the simple task of keeping people in or out or somewhere. Beauty is of no concern. An architectural door on the other hand could range from a hand hammered copper finish to solid Brazilian mahogany finely carved door to a plain faced solid oak panel door. All require a great deal more labor to build than a utility door.
Let's start with building a utility door. Assuming you have a good pair of saw horses and some proper shop tools a utility door is really only a basic frame with perhaps a Luann plywood covering. Placing solid insulation inside the door makes the door a bit more stable and sound proof if the entire assembly is glued together. If your door opening is thirty six inches by eighty inches high, your finished frame will be a bit smaller by a quarter inch. Construct the frame of one and a half inch thick square boards ripped from a two by four. Try to pick the straightest pieces you can find. If you own a table saw, make lap joints for all four corners.
Lap joints will make the frame far stronger than butt joints. If no table saw is available, the use biscuits can be substituted. Glue and screw all four corners making sure the frame is square. Add a horizontal cross brace again using lap joints or biscuits. Let the assembly completely dry. Now install the Luann quarter inch plywood to one side of the frame. Glue and nail the plywood in place. Add your rigid insulation to the inside of the frame and glue that in place as well. Now add the second face to the door and set the assembly aside to dry. Using a router with a small eighth inch round over chamfer bit, put a small chamfer on all edges of the door. This prevents splintering of the plywood edges and makes opening and closing the door easier as well. Hinges come in hundreds of styles and finishes. Utility hinges should be at least three inches in length and preferably three hinges per door. Using a hinge cutter, mark the door and jamb to assure the hinge pockets line up exactly.
If you have a router bit for hinges or a good wood chisel go ahead and cut the hinge pockets. Mount your hinges and the door is ready for a lock set, a barrel bolt or whatever device you choose to keep the door closed. Total cost maybe forty dollars.
An architectural door on the other hand can costs thousands of dollars to make. I have a friend who hand hammers copper faced doors with the most intricate designs you can imagine. Those doors sell for thousands of dollars and are mostly made to order. If you are going to attempt to make an architectural door you will need some advanced wood working tools beyond the normal plane and chisel sets. You will need a blind pocket screw jig, a mortise and tenon set, a wide array of different types of planes, chisels and gouges. Multiple sets of pipe clamps and a good solid work bench are a bare minimum. The wood you select to work with must be kiln dried and have a stable basis.
Pine is easy to cut and carve but warps at the slightest hint of moisture. Oak, Cherry, Hard rock maple, mahogany and other hardwoods are harder to cut and carve but are much more stable over time. A good door will have an outer framework of solid wood pieces joined by mortise and tenon joinery. Many designs allow these joints to be joined with a single wooden peg and they last forever. Joints must be precise and tight. The interior sections of the door can be solid panels with carved faces or other ornate decorations. Panels are usually installed using a mortise slot cut into the sides of the doors exterior frame. Interior doors will have the panels simply slide into grooves in the rails and stiles with no glue or nails. This allows for expansion and contraction of the wood. Heavy wood doors will have four good solid brass, four inch ball bearing hinges. They will prevent the door from sagging over time and bowing and bending the jamb out of shape as well. Once stains and sealers have been applied, a solid wood door should last for many, many years.
Pete
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