Making interior doors

I was in Home Depot the other day and saw some interior doors made by Masonite that are two panel roman style with arches. A picture is attached below. If I had a solid wood door the size I need, I bet I could cut the arch and everything with my cnc router, couldn't I? These doors sell for $180 each which is above my budget since I have atleast 13 doors inside my house to replace! Does anyone know where to get solid wood the size for the doors? Just wondering if anyone did anything like this...

Warren

Warren there is no place I know of that sells door blanks. That is not to say they are not available. The problem with doing doors is the need for big equipment.

One option would be to find a local cabinet shop that had the equipment and have them make the blanks for you.

Mike

You may also find some old solid doors locally at a salvage yard

Hello Warren,
Most lumberyards carry wood that will work for building interior doors. I usually look for straight, kiln dried, douglas fir 2 x 6's that are cut as close to quarter-sawn as possible. It may take some picking through the lumber stack to find suitable wood but it can be done. Make sure the wood has been kept dry also.
As far as construction, I would recommend using traditional "mortice and tenon" joints for the frame. It should be fairly easy to fixture this joint on your CNC, provided you have enough z axis clearance.

Good Luck!

Most solid core doors made today use an partical board or MDF core, with veneered faces. A door made with real solid wood wood expand and contract enough due to humidity that it would either not close in the summer, or have a huge gap in the winter, unless you live in an area that's very dry year round.

A lot of paint grade raised panel doors are now made of MDF as well, so that's what I'd use. Most doors today are 1-3/8, but if you replace the stop and hinges, you can use 2 layers of 3/4" MDF and get 1-1/2" doors, unless you can find 5/8" MDF locally.

EDIT: I'm assuming you want a solid slab, not a stile and rail as the previous post it reffering to.

Are you trying to save money by using a solid wood door....well solid wood doors would be more then $180 each.....you could make your own doors using the rail, stile and floating panel...if they are going to be painted the floating panel could be MDF...the rails and stiles would be kiln dried poplar which is about $3 per board foot.

As an option you could by a flat hollow core door and add molding to the face...

Viper, they make entire doors from MDF. Stiles, rails and panels. Just mortise a strip of poplar into the edge to hold the hinge screws.

I made solid MDF bifold doors for my old place because it was to hard to find 8 foot tall replacements for the old sleel and plastic ones. They used the cheep pin style bifold pivots, so I added plates on each side so the MDF would not split and painted everything gloss white so they would match the cheep hollow MDF 6 panel doors I used everywhere else in the house. I just streached the top panel to match the proportions of the others. I used a set of raised door bits to make the rails and stiles and just beveled the panels. I made 14 doors (3 closets with 2 doors and 2 with 4 like the one in the pic) and spent about $100 for the wood and $100 for the router bits. That was less than the cost of one set of custom made doors. They didn't turn out "perfect", but I was fixing it up to sell and the old doors looked like crap.
One big note: They were heavy!!! I only used 3/4 but they were at the max the hardware was rated for. Also I generated a TON of dust, wear a good mask.
Harbor Freight sells set of carbide raised panel bits ( http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...temnumber=2775 )pretty cheep now, if you have the time, space and ambition, go for it, not that hard.

Those doors look awsome lwill.

Hi - thought I would just add a question to this existing post about making interior / exterior doors.

Last week, my 10 year old was goofing around and broke out the dead bolt door frame on our garage. (don't ask) Looking at it closer, it was built remarkably poorly, so I added some re inforcement. (metal frame work originally purchased for my diy router)

As part of this process, I started to think about making this rather narrow door a bit wider, taller, etc. I have installed several pre-hung doors before and they went well, but a "hand built" one for a shed frankly was not that great. One of the big challenges was hinge mounting and alignment.

So the basic questions are this

- I am thinking of building the door from 3 layers. 2 each of quality plywood (not baltic birch, but HD A grade / approx 11 layers per 20mm) In between my wife wants a window for more light, so I was thinking of a 3 layer sandwich.

- If I build my own door, do I more or less build it like a "pre-hung" door and frame, then put it into the rough opening ? It would be nice to do away with the extra frame, as I would like it as wide as possible.

- How do you align the hinges - or perhaps more correctly, how do the pros align hinges when they make pre-hung doors ? I am guessing I could locate the door with shims, then perhaps use a thin router bit to but a matching hinge location. Any suggestions ?

Thanks

First, the "A" grade at Home Depot is garbage made in china plywood. It'll start warping before you get it home. However, if you can glue up your sandwich quickly, it may stay flat.

To align the hinges, make a jig and route the mortises using a template guide bushing, or a bit with a top mounted bearing. The jig will have notches for all 3 hinges. Make the end flush to the door, and use a 1/8" spacer at the top of the jamb.

If you know what you're doing, you can install the jamb by itself, but you may find it easier to pre hang the door before installing it.