#41-45 FROM THE ASHES

Great doors…looks like making doors can be kinda pricey…

-- Dan Hux,,,,Raleigh, North Carolina

Hey Rob
There’s a whole lot of door making going on. I bet the cutters set you back big $$$. I see five doors in one photo is that the total number of doors ? No finish that’s cool. They all look great, I’ve gone to your web site you’ve got a lot of serious equipment. wow was that a 24’ jointer My father in-law was a sash and door man for 50 years he did work for john Wayne and all the windows in toontown and other high jobs, That toontown job were some of the toughest windows I’ve ever seen. Many of those windows were convex and concave on the same window and they were all true divided lights.Thanks for sharing.

-- Jim from Heirloom Woodshop, custom furniture ,maker, woodworking school, heirloomwoodshop.com

pricey maybe….. commercial oak doors like this go for $500 so there is a pretty bunch of pennies in those doors lined up there.

-- The smell of wood, coffee in the cup, the wife let's me do my thing, the lake is peaceful. http://web.me.com/deceiver6/Deceiver/Craftsman_on_the_lake/Craftsman_on_the_lake.html

Dan,
Tooling for a specific design is expensive, so you’d need to know how many you are going to build in the near future in order to recover your cost as fast as possible. Of this particular design we know we have orders for at least 15 more in the next 6 months, so I bought the tooling. Doors 1-40, that I have built, have all been different designs, not similar tooling, with a lot of hand carving, distressing and customizing.
Ironically, having expensive tooling that can continuously crank out a consistent high quality product is cheaper than trying to invent the wheel every time around.

a1Jim
This door run is for the bathroom wing of the master bedroom suite in a house I am doing the millwork in.
Each one one of these doors looks alike, but are slightly different in sizes, and stile offsets, slight differences in thicknesses and reveals. They are custom doors (5), but still look alike.
The cost of the cutters was recovered and then some on these five. The jointer is 20”.
Thanks for the comment.
Daniel:
Commercial oak doors average in around the number you mentioned. We use all reclaimed woods and I personally select frame and panel material on every door that is built here and I have many, many thousands of board feet from which to choose. Fortunately we have attracted educated clientele that can appreciate the materials and engineering that go into each piece. And no, they are not cheap.

Great photos!

-- Never board, always knotty, lots of growth rings

Nice! Very impressive. I need a new door . . . or two.

-- "They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night." ~ Edgar Allan Poe