I have about 34 jams (about 60 doors total) to build all exterior… some double french doors some are single units (maybe 8 are single) i have about 100 new exterior french door slabs… of all different designs ie: full view, 6 lite, 9 lite, 12 lite, lites over panels ect… they also are from 30″ to 38″ wide… even some that match one might be 34″ the other 36″…. all will be set into brick (all brick 12″ thick openings)
1. no 2 units have to be the same
2. on the double units one door can be fixed
3. about half will have lites above
4. I have this stack of 2×10 x 18′ #1 pine that i’d like to use (been in my warehouse for over 5 years) so it should be stable
5. no 2 openings are exactly the same but by selecting and matching the door sizes to the openings i can get a pretty uniform look
so my question
a. would the 2 x 10’s be ok for jam material?
a1. if so should i send it out to be milled into jam stock
a2. what about milling on the backside to control warp?
b. weather stripping?
with a fixed center strike or even if i hinged from the fixed center it’d have to help?
build em flat then set as a unit? ( some will end up as wide as 80″ and as tall as 108″)
how would you plan…carry this out? I’d love to think i could get 3 of these built & hung a day… but….
thanks in advance for ideas & help
p
Replies
The 2x10 stock will work but you must have enough room in your rough opening. You will have 2" of jamb + door width + shims. It wouldn't hurt to groove out the back-side when you have the rabbet cut in. They can also cut the groove for the weather-stripping. And for the doubles. take the inactive leaf to get mortised for flush-bolts. I don't know what kind of equipment you have but theycould also mortise for hinges while they're at it. And prep for locks. Then you could build the frames on the ground and install them like usual. It would be the same as doing pre-hungs. You will be able to do more than 3 a day.
2x jambs are great... more meat to nail/screw the casing to. Typical store bought jambs are 1-1/4 thick on the fat side but only 3/4 on the other, and that doesn't help if you're trying to securely fasten a fat piece of trim to it. If your material is 1-1/2" then you can net 1" on the thin side using a 1/2" rabbet.
Main thing is to be able to mill very straight stock. No fun trying to force a hefty jamb leg to be straight while you're hanging it. If you take it out to someone with a Weinig moulder, you'll get nice straight-line chatter-free material that's milled on 4 sides and can include your back relief grooves (a good idea if you ask me). You could run all of it thru the saw yourself but trying to get a nice rabbeted jamb on a tablesaw... oww... don't wanna go there... sanding out all those saw marks.
Most of the jambs I do are kerfed for Q-lon weatherstripping, the barbed nylon stuff that presses in. Works great. Rabbet is 2" for a 1-3/4" door.
Sounds like you're buying a door hanging jig too, if you don't already have one. You might be able to find a lumberyard with a Northfield machine to do all the mortising.
Aren't you around the Bay somewhere? Take your material to White Bros. in Oakland or Lowpensky in SF. Truitt in Berkeley has a door machine.
Ponyti, if you are willing to leave your goal at only three a day, you probably should just go out and by an old fashioned rabbet plane and a smooth plane and hand make all of these!
I once read a Fine homebuilding article on door hangers where they guy was hanging about 65 per day! They weren't prehungs either! If my memory serves me correctly, he wasn't installing casing or knobs.
I'm guessing I could create at least three jambsets per hour using my power saw and the above mentioned hand planes. (I'd have to invest in a new $8.00 blade however).
I would use a door hanging kit and router, along with a drilling kit.
BLUE
thanks for the info... I did leave out... that all of these ar 8' doors and about half will have transoms to fill out a 130" opening... on the fixed side i wasn't going to swing that door at all some of my opening are 82" so i figured i could have a pretty soild center strike...
IF.. i can get my stock made into jam material... I still think me build'n em flat with the transoms set'n & secure'n in all brick opening with trim ect... I'd be happy with 3 a day... the doors are nice with insulated glass and aren't light... I'd guess a whole unit with transoms would have to weigh 200lbs....
thanks in advance for any more ideas/input
pony
naaa not in the bay area... dead overlook'n the mississippi river... only boats i see are barges... but a cool site to sometimes see 6-7 lines of em... looks like rush hour on the mississippi
We just finished a house which had about 15 pairs of exterior doors and about 8 single exterior doors. Most of them were 8' tall doors by 3' wide with a transom above. The jambs were about 8" thick and were made from 1.5" thick material. The jambs were kerfed on the back but were not rabbeted.
We used interlocking bronze weatherstripping on these doors, which is a royal PITA, but it does look and perform great once installed and tweaked. We also used some bulb type weatherstripping from resource technology (I believe that's the company). Which worked very well and was much quicker to install.
I had a separate 1/2" by 4" stop milled so that we would not have to use rabbeted jambs. This allowed for a little adjustment in the hinges before we attached the stops, to get the doors to align.
I had 2 guys hanging these doors and this is how they did it:
1. assemble the jamb flat on the floor with the exterior stop installed for the transom.
2. lift the jamb into place and secure it with a few screws down each side where the stop would cover.
3. install the transom.
4. machine the doors and the jambs for hinges using a Bosch jig
5. swing the doors and then shim the jambs to get a good fit.
6. rabbet the doors and install the weatherstripping and the bronze hook type sill.
7. install the stops
They were able to do only a little better than 1 opening per day. However, the metal weatherstrip and hardware prep took more time than the rest of the operation by far.
Anyway, I think your estimate of 3 per day is probably about right.
hanging about 65 per day!
did U lose a " . " somewhere?
Jeff
No jeff, I read it in the magazine. I kept that one copy for a long long time but I think it went with all my other contracting stuff to the pig farmer.
blue FRAMING ADVICE ALERT!!!! DON'T TAKE ANY FRAMING ADVICE FROM ME. I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT IT. IF YOU WANT GOOD FRAMING ADVICE, JUST ASK GABE. DON'T ASK ANYONE ELSE....JUST ASK GABE! REMEMBER, I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT FRAMING...I JUST BS ABOUT IT.
END OF ALERT!
I read that article too. I remember thinking - hmmm... Let's give him the benefit of working more than eight hours, after breaks, lunch, setup, cleanup, interruptions, and the logistics of getting the door materials to the proper openings, each of which I am sure was perfect. I also assume he was working alone, otherwise why brag about hanging a certain amount in a day?
So this guy is whipping through a huge building with his tools carefully in stalling one unit every ten minutes or less.
I thought to myself - Naaah - this was just a dream he had.Les Barrett Quality Construction
Les, I remember being skeptical too, but then when I re read it, I realized how simple he made the process.
There is huge economies to be gained by mass producing anything....
And finally....I've seen guys do things that I thought was impossible...
I'm not arguing that the guy wasn't dreaming.....but maybe he was doing 40?
blue FRAMING ADVICE ALERT!!!! DON'T TAKE ANY FRAMING ADVICE FROM ME. I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT IT. IF YOU WANT GOOD FRAMING ADVICE, JUST ASK GABE. DON'T ASK ANYONE ELSE....JUST ASK GABE! REMEMBER, I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT FRAMING...I JUST BS ABOUT IT.
END OF ALERT!
I believe the article in mention is in the apr/may '89 issue FH#53 pg 38.
The guy said in 1953 a door hanging specialist friend of his with the assistance from a helper was hanging 80 to 120 doors a day.
He said he uses nails alone, no shims. A sequence of steps creating a technique called 'clipping'.
He also uses a wormdrive saw fitted with an arbor extension that allows him to to make a cut that's flush with the saw's base when cutting out the bottom plate. heh heh
Interesting article.
Oh yeah, the guy's name was Larry Haun. ROAR!
Larry is Mr production! I prefer to aspire to be Mr Quality.Les Barrett Quality Construction
I prefer to aspire to be both.
blue FRAMING ADVICE ALERT!!!! DON'T TAKE ANY FRAMING ADVICE FROM ME. I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT IT. IF YOU WANT GOOD FRAMING ADVICE, JUST ASK GABE. DON'T ASK ANYONE ELSE....JUST ASK GABE! REMEMBER, I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT FRAMING...I JUST BS ABOUT IT.
END OF ALERT!
Excellent point!Les Barrett Quality Construction
I prefer to aspire to be both.
unfortunatly ... they don't coincide!
you get to pick one or the other.
Jeff
You sound like a Democrat now...
Kinda negative....
The trick is to set your goal to be both. In the end, you'll probably fail...but look at how far ahead of the pack you be..in both categories.
blue FRAMING ADVICE ALERT!!!! DON'T TAKE ANY FRAMING ADVICE FROM ME. I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT IT. IF YOU WANT GOOD FRAMING ADVICE, JUST ASK GABE. DON'T ASK ANYONE ELSE....JUST ASK GABE! REMEMBER, I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT FRAMING...I JUST BS ABOUT IT.
END OF ALERT!
Blue
u sound like a Democrat now...
That's hysterical, Jeff sounding like a democrat, hahahahahahahaha................
He may take it as an insult but I think its funny!
that's just the Pgh accent coming thru ...
99.99% Dem's here ...
hard not to sound like one every now and then.
I'll sound more Rep on Tues.
Jeff
Did I miss why you are making this many exterior doors without being, like, a factory?<G>
My two cents are: don't make the double doors center hinged...no tweakability...
Where are you getting the slabs, and what are they?
You're the guy who has a warehouse to do this in, right?
Don't worry, we can fix that later!
BB, thats an exellent tip!
Any dissenters?
blue FRAMING ADVICE ALERT!!!! DON'T TAKE ANY FRAMING ADVICE FROM ME. I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT IT. IF YOU WANT GOOD FRAMING ADVICE, JUST ASK GABE. DON'T ASK ANYONE ELSE....JUST ASK GABE! REMEMBER, I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT FRAMING...I JUST BS ABOUT IT.
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nope.
I was wondering much the same.
I'm all for having someone that knows just what the hell they're doing do the lag work for me when I can ...
diy is over rated.
last job ... moved outta the basement to punch list the "upstairs" ... things the original builder never got around to ...
little things like ... ball catches in the closet french doors ...
OK .. I got no problem installing a coupla ball catches ...
but really ... does anyone GC think they save money by now ordering them already installed?
I'd as soon order a set of prehung frenchs without ball catches as I would without hinges.
Call the lumberyard ... place the order ... tell me the price ... and that's what I'll charge.
I see stuff like that all the time ... never makes sense to me.
Got a basement of doors that need cut down sooner or later ... order the damn things already cut down! Doing it yourself is not saving time or money .....
Jeff
here is the "deal" all the doors are 8' mixed: full single lite, single lite over a panel, 6 lite over a panel, 9lite, 12 lite, most have lower panels.... low e glass, some have beveled glass raised panels/trim ect... anyway all are new high end door slads (some are in the door showroom @ $4500 pr)
i have "aquired" about 200 of these some are matched sets some match but one will be 36" the match will be 34"... some have a few scrapes or bad edges (very few)
i also have several hundred transoms fixed & non...
pallet after pallet of baldwin hardware
toss in this stack of several hundred 2x10 x18 #1 pine and i just think i can come out build'n these units
because
a. i have the material
b. no 2 openings i have are the same
c. no 2 units have to look the same
d. i have more time than money
e. i'm just stupid sometimes
f. if i don't have to buy it... i sure don't have to pay for it....
g. one door (on the double units) will (in my plans) be fixed ie: non hinged this way i can trim em out to hide the few that may have bad edges ect... use the fixed door to square the unit... have a center that i can make any thickness to "take up space to fit the hole"
if i was have'n these built somewhere about no 2 would be alike...which would cause as many problems...
pony
We've had this argument before. (The forum, I mean, not you and me.) You can have both good and fast. It's good, fast, and cheap that you can't have all at the same time.
divide it out ...
if he never took one break ...
8 hrs times 60 minutes ... 480 minutes.
480 divided by 65 ...
7.38.
Takes me that long to walk the lumber over to the saw.
half that many at twice the speed is still bull sh!t.
Jeff
Would it work out if the builder pre-cut everything the day before, then pre-positioned all the components?
That way he'd only have to walk from doorway to doorway with his tools.
Still sounds unlikely to me, tho.
Leon Jester, Roanoke VA
Q: How do you know when a politician is lying?
A: His lips are moving.
Hey, don't shoot the messenger. It was in Fine homebuilding...and it's not me. I can only hang 60....per year!
blue FRAMING ADVICE ALERT!!!! DON'T TAKE ANY FRAMING ADVICE FROM ME. I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT IT. IF YOU WANT GOOD FRAMING ADVICE, JUST ASK GABE. DON'T ASK ANYONE ELSE....JUST ASK GABE! REMEMBER, I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT FRAMING...I JUST BS ABOUT IT.
END OF ALERT!
You caught my drift.Les Barrett Quality Construction
ponytl,
Do you have to put a sill at the bottom or some other type of threshold or sweep? How do you plan on sealing the bottom of the doors? This will make a difference both in appearance and function if you have a French style door with one fixed and one active door.
J.P.
my thoughts on the bottom/sill
have a sill that is full width (one to hold the whole thing together as a unit) with weatherstripping the fixed door just like the swing door... cept the fixed door will be screwed in place... might have to add small shims to keep the fixed unit centered and not over compress the weatherstripping... ie: fixed if the need ever came up i could always remove/cut the screws & hinge it... these doors will all open in...
i have pages of drawings try'n to think & rethink this out so that i can have some type production even if each unit is a little different... these all go out to small balconys or patios all will have an awning cover...
pony