I'm building a new front door for the house. Know there are a few of you who have more experience than I do. Longshot, but maybe there's some advice here. The styles on the door are 1 3/4" thick and 6" wide. Going to use standard mortise and tenon to join the rails to the styles. Issue is that the rule of thumb I know is depth of mortise is 2/3 the width of the material. I don't have the ability to cut a 4" deep mortise and seems a bit overkill. I'm not sure that bit exists for a router and I don't have a hollow chisel mortiser, nor the patience to cut these by hand right now. But at the same time, it's an exterior door that I want to be strong and last forever. I am comfortable with a bit that will get me ~3" depth and wondering if that would be "good enough".

Also, any design critique (structurally

) would be appreciated. The panels are going to be 3/4" flat panels. Nothing too fancy.

3 ...

Report Post

Posted by gumbo2176

Member since May 2018

19487 posts

Posted on 9/5/23 at 10:53 am to Jon A thon

So, your concern is the mortise and tenon staying together with the depth you can cut with what you have on hand to accomplish that joint.

If me, I'd glue it up and clamp it to dry and then drill a couple holes and drive in glued up dowels to peg the joint through the mortise and tenon so it can't back out in any way without first drilling out the dowels.

All my old functioning cypress shutters are made that way on my house and are close to 100 years old now.

If painting the door, it will not be seen. If staining the door and hitting it with a poly type finish, just make sure the dowels are done symmetrically so it looks professional.

This post was edited on 9/5/23 at 10:55 am

0 ...

Report Post

Posted by TygerDurden

Member since Sep 2009

1939 posts

Posted on 9/5/23 at 12:04 pm to Jon A thon

I respect the door build challenge you are embarking on. I have built custom cabinets along with the cabinet doors which in a lot of ways is very similar to building a house door. I have attempted to build custom house doors before and have always struggled. Your questions on joinery are spot one. That is very important and aligning mortising is important as well. Having a large work area where you can lay the door down and place clamps from multiple angles to ensure the door is true from several planes can be challenging. Would be interesting to hear about updates during the build…

1 ...

Report Post

Posted by eng08

Member since Jan 2013

5997 posts

Posted on 9/5/23 at 12:16 pm to TygerDurden

You need to plan for movement.

I have this fine home building article on gates saved, might be helpful. LINK

There’s also a book on door and window making by lost art press that is all mortise and tenon by hand. It should have good info too.

0 ...

Report Post

Posted by bbvdd

Memphis, TN

Member since Jun 2009

28205 posts

Posted on 9/5/23 at 1:58 pm to Jon A thon

Hopefully Obtuse will see this and can help.

I will say that I built a western cedar door for my screened in porch. Built it 7-8 yrs ago and just used dowels on the joinery. Still going strong and no signs of weakness at all.

That being said, I'm sure that 3" would be fine. That style door you could use square pegs on the joinery and trimmed to a pyramidal shape. Would be massively strong and would look good.

Page 1