Speaker A
All right. Well, I've got a fun little project limit that I'm going to start up here. Going to build a door. This is going to be in quarter-sawn Douglas fir.
Building a custom quarter-sawn Douglas fir door to fit a 100-year-old heritage farmhouse, matching original materials and craftsmanship.
Key Takeaways
- Using old growth Douglas fir is essential to match the heritage building's original materials.
- Precision CNC machining ensures perfect joinery and fit for historic door frames.
- Titebond 3 adhesive combined with dowels creates joints stronger than the wood itself.
- Maintaining the original jamb requires careful on-site fitting and adjustments.
- Proper finishing with oil-based and ceramic coatings protects the door from weather and wear.
What the video covers
- Project involves building a door from quarter-sawn old growth Douglas fir for a 100-year-old prairie farmhouse.
- The door replacement was prompted by damage caused by a livestock guardian dog.
- Matching the original old growth fir material is critical to maintain the home's historic character.
- Door components are glued, milled, and machined oversized before final CNC sizing and joinery.
- Titebond 3 waterproof adhesive and solid maple dowels are used to ensure strong, durable joints.
- Pre-fit is done on-site to ensure the door fits the original 100-year-old jamb without replacing it.
- Adjustments include sanding, tapering, and drilling for surface-mounted hinges to fit the existing frame.
- Finishing involves oil-based finishes and a ceramic coating for exterior protection.
- Bottom panels are replaced with solid wood to prevent damage from the dog, with glass components placed higher.
- Final installation is timed to be completed before the couple’s wedding.
Chapters
- 00:00Project Introduction and Material Selection
- 00:39Background: Door Damage and Project Origin
- 01:14Matching Historic Materials
- 02:01Gluing and Milling Process
- 02:42CNC Machining and Joinery
- 04:35Adhesive and Joint Strength
- 05:47Progress Update and Pre-Fit Preparation
- 06:17On-Site Pre-Fit and Adjustments
- 12:09Final Fitting and Installation Preparation
- 12:57Finishing Process and Project Completion
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
We got a nice batch of really old growth Douglas fir with very tight growth rings. It's for a a prairie farmhouse that's about 100 years old. And a couple's going to be getting married this summer, and they want a new door
Speaker A
for their wedding. So, I'm going to start milling, gluing, and clamping. This is the lumber. It's already been rough cut into its lengths here, and I've got to start planing and gluing some pieces together.
Speaker A
This project began with a DM from Christian at Prairie Rose showing us that one of her livestock guardian dogs had completely destroyed the front door of her house, trying to alert them to a stranger who was outside. It was
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probably just an Amazon delivery man or something, but all of this resulted in them needing a new door for their wedding that they had coming up.
Speaker A
Now, the door itself here isn't that technical or challenging compared to some of our other projects, but the biggest challenge we're going to face here is building this door so it matches the character of this 100-year-old home.
Speaker A
Most of the existing millwork and the old door were made from fir, but we can't just use any fir. We have to make sure we find an old growth fir that's going to match the material of that time
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period. Okay, so that's kind of step one. You always glue up the components that you need for the door to be glued up. You do that on, let's say, afternoon one, and by the end of tomorrow, we should be able
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to run all the parts and hopefully clamp this door. So, we got a really nice batch of old growth Douglas fir to do this little door on. Look at this.
Speaker A
Our parts that we glued up yesterday are all good, cured, ready to move on. Rest of the milling. The door finishes off at 44 mm thick. We rough milled everything to 46 mm thick or sorry, 48 mm
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thick and then we're going to plane it down to 46 mm. The machines on the CNC machine are 46 mm and then we sand them down to 44 at the end there.
Speaker A
During our milling process, we don't actually take these components down to their final size manually. We take them down to a rough oversized dimension so that we can then take them over to the CNC machine and it will cut them down to
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its final size and then it will go ahead and cut all of that stile and rail joinery and also drill the holes for the dowels. We could probably do this sizing beforehand, but by allowing the CNC machine to do it, it
Speaker A
knows exactly what the size of piece it's going to be working on is. Therefore, we know that we're going to get perfect joinery in the end.
Speaker A
Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. After that I cut them. Yeah. Um, well, I'll plane them.
Speaker A
Yeah. And then after that then I can cut it. Okay. Now that we have all of our milling and machining complete on the components, we can begin preparing for the glue-up on this door. And just like all of our
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other exterior projects and interior projects for that matter, we're going to be utilizing Titebond 3 as an adhesive.
Speaker A
So out of the three common Titebonds that are available, the 1, 2, and 3, Titebond 3 is the only one that's rated as waterproof. Titebond 2 is rated as water resistant, so it can kind of deal with some light moisture. But if you're
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going to be doing something like an exterior door that's going to face all of the elements, Titebond 3 is going to be your best bet. And then to further secure those joints, that's where we have our stile and rail joinery and our
Speaker A
solid maple dowels come into play. The combination of that joinery with the adhesive actually ends up forming a joint that's stronger than the wood itself. So, if you were to try and crack this or break it, it wouldn't break on
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that seam. You would end up breaking the wood before that joint ever let go.
Speaker A
Here we are again, another morning at the Black Forest. We're making progress on our little fir door here.
Speaker A
Everything was clamped yesterday. We got it sanded. Parts have been machined. We're doing the final sizing on the door. And the next step, we'll go out to the job site, the beautiful old farmhouse out in Strathmore, Alberta,
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and we'll do a pre-fit into the existing original jamb, which is about 100 years old. Then we'll bring it back, do all our staining and finishing.
Speaker A
So, we're here out here today just east of Strathmore. Actually, we got a special project. There's a big wedding coming up in a couple of months here and we've been asked to replace this door
Speaker A
here by Prairie Rose and we're going to have this done. So, we're doing our pre-fit today. The door has been constructed. It's not stained and finished, but we've just got to hang it into the opening so we can take it back
Speaker A
to the shop and do all the finishing. We'll just have to figure out, oh, it's a mortise.
Speaker A
Mortise. Hort. So, we'll have to figure out what we're going to do with that, too.
Speaker A
Yeah. So, the hinges are going to be surface mounted and the door is 43.
Speaker A
Right now we're 44, right? We might have to sand it down a little bit. We'll see how it closes. Right.
Speaker A
So then I guess we'll just take this off. Yes. First things first and then we can put them wherever we want. Right.
Speaker A
Okay. Okay. So, you're going to be about 10 mm to start. This is 10 mil. And then I can put the paper to raise the door.
Speaker A
I got it. That's not too bad. I think I got to go in sideways.
Speaker A
We got to go up a little bit, right? Yeah. Okay. Put the taper one.
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Put the taper down. That's too much a bit. Hey, the top is crooked. We have to cut that up mostly because if we want to go straight on the sides. Hang on.
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And then that makes it higher a little bit because the other door was pretty tight here last year on this side.
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Okay. So now the top will be half. Okay. It will be like that. Yeah.
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And the bottom we have to place it like full. Yeah. Okay. So, do you want to look at the gap over here? Look at this. That looks pretty good there.
Speaker A
We could almost cut the taper on the top here too. You want to take a look there?
Speaker A
It's not too much. It's not bad. Well, we could cut one or two mm.
Speaker A
Yes, we can. But I think we can hang it like this. It's close to hang and then we have to pare the side.
Speaker A
Okay. So, if we're going to hang it, we should raise it up almost tight to this side.
Speaker A
If you want to cut it, then might as well we can raise all the way up.
Speaker A
Yeah. And we're touching here. We're touching that. You're touching there. You have like almost a mill.
Speaker A
Then I think we should mark it. Yeah. You want to? Okay. Okay. So, I think we can just drill it and screw it.
Speaker A
Just drill it. Okay. So, let's drill like two in each. Okay. And then if everything is good, then we drill the rest.
Speaker A
Okay. Because if something goes wrong, we can always counter and just router to the mortise. Okay. Well, that works too then.
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Then we can put it and he can close the door. Yeah. Yes. But for me to rub them in the shop would be easier like, oh, yeah. Make the jamb and everything.
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Yeah. Because this is straight, but the door has a taper. Same in there. Yeah. In the whole door.
Speaker A
Jeez, man. Look at that, Russ. Beautiful. Original to the building. Still working. Wow. That's something.
Speaker A
You know how old it is? You know, I have no idea. Could be over a hundred years old.
Speaker A
I guess we can take the door off here. Yeah. When we're not supplying a door with a jamb, our process is a little bit different than if we are. So, typically in some of our previous videos you've seen, we head on site with the door and
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the jamb already 100% finished, and we just rip out that old unit and put our new one right into place. However, with this door, we're trying to maintain that original 100-year-old jamb. So that means that our door needs to be constructed to
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fit perfectly in this opening that we didn't actually construct. So we find the bes...
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there we can bring that door back to our shop and begin our finishing process. On this door, we're going to be utilizing oilbased finishes, which is something that we've been using on our doors for about 10 years now. Previous to this, we
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would use sprayed urethanes, which do a good job protecting the door if you don't have a lot of UV exposure. But if you begin to get heavy UV rays on the door, that finish will eventually flake and peel over time. And that's where an
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oil-based finish performs much better because you get this natural look and feel on the door. A really warm, tactile experience when you're actually using it, but you don't have any risk of that flaking or peeling. And as an additional
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layer of protection, we like to use our ceramic coating on the exterior side of all of our doors as well. So, we typically go with our Pro Coating.
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That's the solventbased coating. It's going to give the maximum protection, the maximum sheen, and it's just going to extend the lifetime of this door before it ever needs any refinishing.
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With our finishing process complete, all that's left for us is to do the final placement of the panels and glass in this door. To avoid the same problem that they had last time with the dog actually breaking out the glass on the
Speaker A
door, we have decided to replace those bottom panels and just make them solid wood and then any of the glass components are much higher up on the door, hopefully out of the reach of her dog, Chief, so we can avoid [music] any
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future damage to this door that we're constructing. And I also want to take a moment to point out the way that this door finished up, specifically the stain color we chose. In my opinion, I feel like this does a really good job
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matching that original age character of the home. But let us know what you guys think in the comments below. If you think we actually did a good job matching this 100-year-old look or not.
Speaker A
With all of the details finished up on the door, it's time to load everything up onto the trailer and then drive out to their home to get this door installed just in time for their wedding that's happening next month.
Speaker A
I guess we're out here at Prairie Rose. This is the old Strathmore Museum and we're reinstalling a a door slab only. Their glass got broken into some time ago and uh we're upgrading to a new door slab and uh there's a big event going on here
Speaker A
for this family. There's a wedding coming up in August and they're just going to have everything set and ready to go.
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I just want to stand him up and lean him against the post here. Okay, hang on. I got to pull the top out.
Speaker A
Okay. Okay, let's try that. Now even the mosquitoes have to worry about. [applause] Okay.
Speaker A
And then I just [music] Hey, [music] [music] hey hey. [singing] [music] [music] [music and singing]
Topics:heritage buildingold growth Douglas fircustom doorquarter-sawn woodCNC machiningTitebond 3door fittingprairie farmhousewoodworkingexterior door finish
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