Corbel Woodworks: The Great Door

The Great Door is the first project I did as a free man. I wasn't doing it under some employer. This was a project I took on myself knowing I could do it. I consider it the start of what is now Corbel Woodworks

I made this door with very limited tools. A tribute to the skills I've learned along the way. This was a passion piece for me. The project was one of the most interesting woodworking pieces I've done. Here's how I did it:

I bought the Sapele Mahogany in 8/4 (2") thick stock. With varying widths. The wood was carefully selected for clarity of grain and straightness. I Marked the wood with chalk so I could see where each piece would end up before cutting each piece out. It was then ripped into 7/8" half's. This essentially doubled the working wood. I then laid out the boards as they would be when the door was assembled.

The rough boards marked with chalk.

boards laid out and orientation marked with chalk

The other side laid out

The MDF core

This is all the wood parts after milling.

Rough layout to determine the correct gap between boards

Lock mitre corner joint and splined tongue and groove.

All the strips laid out and getting clamping system set for glue up.

The picture above is the wide facing of the top arch to the door. This was done with a bunch of strips glued together. They were laminated against the mdf form you see. then small square blocks were screwed to the table all around it. And to clamp it, a wedge was driven between the blocks and the strips. You can see one wedge at the very top of the arch. This was a good way of doing this even as the glue was a quick drying type.

Lock mitre, the small gap in the lock is functional. it's an abscess for surplus glue to escape to so the joint can be clamped without built up pressure fighting to keep the joint open.

gluing the boards down. The MDF was sealed as well as all the joints. To hold the boards down there are 2 rows of biscuits or lamellos running down each board nearthe centre of each board. this allows for expansion and contraction of each board as the seasons pass. otherwise the door would rip itself apart.

Door glued up with glass mocked up in place. The frame to the glass was put in in rather a clever way. The top and bottom of the frame was put in with a loose spline. then the sides of the frame dropped in with some glue for the corners/mitres. Then to lock it all in place a long spline was slid up from the bottom of the door inside the groove between each board.

Using the CNC to machine the outside trim for the arch.

This machine was fun to use. It could have been possible to do this with a router. but the CNC was much more accurate and much more hassle free

Assembling the door frame. This step made sure everything was square and fit together. A mock up of all joints.

The arch was made with wide, but thin pieces of the mahogany glued together much like the wide facing mentioned before. To clamp it I bought a nice wide ratchet strap set. and used the ratchet straps to apply the pressure around a MDF form. Sorry, no photos of that process.

Mocked up, and the joints all fit nicely.

Here I'm fitting the lock assembly. This is a very unique lock that required the MDF core to be notched out before the mahogany was applied. Then the holes bored into the mahogany and everything put together. The striker area (this photo) was mortised in by hand.