Help me build my own interior doors from pine

[heather]

Can you provide me with suggestions, links or books that can help me build my own interior doors?

We have plenty of white pine to use, but I'd either have to rent a saw or have someone mill it or ? maybe I could just do it really rough?
Does the wood have to sit long? or does it just have to be varnished?

I'm looking to make something rustic -

THANKS!!

[heather]

don't tell me nobody here has built a door?

Please help

[moopups]

http://members.cox.net/messman123/messman.htm scroll down for the alphabet, click 'D' and scroll down again.

[Mawna]

Heather are you planning to build interior doors from the pine?? And is it rough sawn lumber? If interior doors and it is rough sawn and new lumber, then it will have to dry for a period of time. You will need to stack the lumber putting slats between each layer to hold one layer off of the next.

BUT if you are planning to build exterior doors I personally would NOT use the pine. I would use cedar instead. As cedar is a natural insect repellent and does not rot, due to the elements like pine would eventually.

[heather]

Yes, I want to do the interior doors - the exterior doors are going to just be fiberglass woodgrain boring yucky things for now -

But we have all this pine sitting around from clearing the land & I started wondering why I'm going to buy interior doors - it would be more fun to make them

Here's what I'm thinking



Am I nuts?

How long would I have to let the pine sit?

THANKS!!

[Ahne Homestead]

There is one rule you will need to abide by if you are going to take on this task. That is "every task needs a new tool." Give yourself permission to buy tools that will make the job easier and more professional.
There are a couple of things you will need to take into consideration. If you are going to use regular door knobs you will have to stay within a standard door thickness. Also the door you have shown looks like you will need to cut grooves in the outer and horizontal boards for the vertical boards to slide in. Doors need to be perfectly square and match the door frame. With that all said you could save enough money on making them to pay for the table saw you will need. Carl

P.S. After you get your trees milled into lumber you will have to let it set 6 months to a year. They make a tester to check the moisture content.

[agmantoo]

I own a house built in 1889 that has handmade doors similar to the one in your photo. The rails and the stiles are secured to each other by wood pegs. The panel boards are tongue and groove and the panels float in the slot milled in the rails and stiles. This float is necessary to allow the wood to expand/contract with temperature changes. The ends of the rails are tenons and the stiles are mortised. A skilled craftperson can make these joints by hand but the rest of us need modern tools. You would want build a clamping fixture to hold the door square during construction. Additionally you will need to do some reading on how to offset the holes for the rails and the stiles to receive the wood pegs and to hold the joint in compression. You could consider using diagonal braces on one side of the door to aid in holding the door square. This design of door is heavy and a minimum of 3 hinges should be used. The only area to be glued is the wood peg, everything else floats in the joints.

[Alex]

Heather,

I am NOT going to show you our one remaining oringinal rough pine door -- it's too rough, all the other interior doors are old -- from a used building material shop -- very nice -- $45 each, with glass handles, and they came with frames for that price.

We used lots of rough sawn pine from the neighbours mill. We used 2 x 13 for window frame; we just sanded them with a belt sander, sawed, glued and screwed them together, nothing fancy, they lasted for 33 years so far.


Then we cut out the logs -- used them for posts for the front deck, after grinding, sanding and varnishing, they make a nice cozy, yet rustic frame,


That's the frame from the picture above, installed -- recent, w/in five years, the small frame straight ahead is 33 years old.

And we made the doors out of rough sawn,


Those are three layers of 1 x 4 pine with tar paper between, arranged at 90 degrees to each other, with new double glazed window, note the planned 1 x 4 pine shutter to the right -- all windows have these. Door is 33 years old, works fine.

Finally, our front door is rough 2 x 6 pine, and varnished inside, that's all that stands between us and -40F,



How fancy do you want to get, the picture you showed seemed nice -- just make your doors like that.

Good Luck,

Alex

[heather]

Alex, I should have known YOU were the guy to contact!
I LOVE what you've done - I enjoy all your posts -
I'm not trying to be fancy one bit -
And I'm only looking to do the interior doors upstairs for now - there are 5 interior doors - 3 bedrooms & 2 baths
I don't think we need doorknobs - I was going for something more rustic - latches of some sort maybe -
I don't even know if I can do this - I guess I've been lying awake in bed too many nights! I dream of pine, Pine, PINE!
I think we cut down 100+ white pines - we stopped counting at some point -
We have about 75 of them up off the ground & hope to use them for our garage next year. In the meantime there are large pieces lying around the edge of our "house building area" that could be used for SOMETHING -
We'll see -
You've all given me some good ideas & things to think about concerning the doors - I THANK YOU as always -
I love this place (mush, mush)

[Alex]

Heather,

Thanks, just for that, here's two more things we did,


The cupboard, on the left, hides our new 200 amp electrical panel, and the one on the right is our coat closet right by the door. Both are, shot, together with a, Z, brace and an air compressor brad nailer and glue. The wood is left over T&G pine from upstairs walls at bedroom and bathroom.

And, we put these handles on the coat closet after the other picture was taken,


These are from some willow branches, not too fancy. All of this will get some varnish soon, to bring out the grain and help keep cleaner.

There, enjoy,

Alex

[Jolly]

The standard drying rule for most woods down here, is one year per inch of thickness.

If you cut in late winter, and air dry well, I think you can push that...I've framed with 2x that were only 6-8 months dry, and things worked pretty well.

I'm thinking that the door you showed was a rail and stile construction, with the inside panel being glued up pine board, although I'm sure a simpler version could be built by building solid board with vertical and horizontal bracing...

Bottom line....at the least...a small tablesaw and a router would come in awful handy in any building endeavor....