Entry Door

John Dow

Former Member (at his request)
Messages
535
Should be flat enough to qualify:D

I've posted some of these over at WC, so they may look familiar to anyone who goes there too.

The door is Lyptus with wedged and pinned MT's, fit dry. I also dovetailed the jamb joints for easy reveal adjustment now and in the future. Lesson learned there: Only the lock side needs to be adjustable, as the hinges limit movement of the other side:doh: Ah, well, it was good pratice cutting four of those joints.

John
 
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The word "hefty" comes to mind. Wow, that door has to weight a ton. It looks great. How did the tools hold up using the Lyptus? Pretty dense stuff isn't it?
 
Hefty it is. Weighs about 150# by my guess. Not too bad on the tools though, not in a class with teak anyway. We did the final planing with a #3 plane and a cambered blade to give it some texture and "age", and I did have to rehone several times per side. Interlocked grain also tends to be problematic with the hand tools, but in this case a little tearout adds character rather than detracting from the finished product.

This was the first time I've used bearing hinges, and I'm trying to figure out why they're made loose pin when you need another set of hands to hold the bearings in order to replace the pin. I ended up un-screwing the leaf instead.

Thanks for the compliments everyone, I would definitely recommend trying something like this to anyone on the fence, as it ends up being a lot of fun.
 
Nicely done John. How did you like working with Lyptus? I use it for furniture. It is heavy! An I never got so many splinters in my hands!
 
Yep, straw bale. We managed to be building during the wettest summer in recent memory too, but we got through it.
 
Man, tell me about it. I think you could cut yourself on a sharp corner too. That aside, Lyptus is beautiful wood, especially the 8/4 which sometimes seems a bit darker. One downside is that I showed up at the lumber yard in a toyota pickup and they brought out these 16' planks. We managed to strap them over the roof and the tailgate, steered a little funny but we got home.
 
Yep, straw bale. We managed to be building during the wettest summer in recent memory too, but we got through it.

I would like to keep up with tha. I have read a lot about them and they seem very functional. The insulation alone is a big + and I am sure there are some difficulites to over come with the extra thickness of the walls
Reg
 
Very fine door indeed John,
While the woodwork is excellent, I’m particularly attracted to the metal parts, and wouldn’t mind details of the studs and knocker.

As to the straw bail construction, I hope you keep posting progress on that as well, and maybe even do a thread of the construction to this point. I have visited Real Goods in Hopland, CA, toured a straw bale home in the Civano community in Tucson, and am interested in possibly building one myself (well, with the help of ten or so of my closest friends).

Welcome John… glad you joined up here.

Frank
 
Lyptus is beautiful wood, especially the 8/4 which sometimes seems a bit darker.
It is really nice and finishes great. What did you use to finish the door? I've had some good luck starting with a 1# cut of dewaxed shelac followed by either solvent or water based gloss poly with a final coat of satin. I've also used waterlox with good results.
The biggest issue I've had was color matching.:huh:
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Nice door, cool construction. I've been working with lyptus awhile now, and really like the color range and variety. It does stain more consistantly if you want to color match.
 
I've certainly got lots of pictures of our work to date, I'll start a thread tonight in the construction area about it. A lot of the process is similar to building a conventional house, with a few very different aspects. So far the biggest hurdle has been, you guessed it, inspectors and codes, just like any other construction project.

As to the door hardware, I can take some close ups, and probably find the websites where we bought them.

Got to go to town today for more wire, so thats a loooong day.

John
 
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