Making a framed/ledged/braced door - how to attach the braces?

[dent]

Hi all,

I am about to build some new garage doors, and will follow the instructions given at:

I am not sure how the bracing should be attached. The instructions seem to say that the rails and stiles are glued up first and left to dry. Then the braces are cut to fit and glued/screw in place. So are the braces glued/screwed on their ends, without any lapping onto the rails/stiles? If the braces are screwed on, where should the screws be positioned for the most strength?

thanks,

dan.

[Cash]

Nailed or screwed on either end, and when you fit the T&G boarding, nail through the boards into the ledges and braces - that will hold it all together quite strongly.

Four tips:

[1] - Don't use screws, use nails - (cheaper and screws don't really add any extra strength to a new door - and more work in drilling, countersinking, or if using plugs, counterboaring, making the plugs and then gluing those into place [IME] - unless of course, you are using a hardwood such as oak. If you are, *DON'T* use iron or steel fixings). [2] - Don't jam the boards in tight between the door jambs, all you want is a nice 'drop in' fit. [3] - If you use nails to fix the boards, ensure that you use oval head nails that are about 13mm longer than the combined thickness of the board and the ledges and braces (so that that will stick out the other side) and then using a nail punch, drive the heads below the surface of the boards and then clench (bend) the nails over (with the grain) on the back of the door and punch these below the surface. Fill the holes in with 'plastic wood' before painting (don't use a water based filler (polyfilla etc) as this will rust the nails over time.

If you must use a water based filler, prime the door first with a solvent based paint, ensuring that the nails are well covered.

[4] - whatever you use to decorate the door, paint the tongues and grooves of the boards before fitting [one coat only], along with the surfaces on the jambs, ledges and braces that will be 'hidden' when the boards are nailed.

Hope this helps

Cash

[dent]

Great! Thanks very much.

dan.

[John Rumm]

I have now refined that section of the wiki a bit since it was a bit sparce...

Yes thanks, just pinched some of those for the article! ;-)

Out of interest, a mate of mine (retired chippie), swears that the way I have shown the braces on that article is "wrong", and the "right" way to to do it is with a single brace that runs the full height of the door, passing the centre rail roughly at the midpoint with a half lap joint.

Anyone have any opinion on that?

[Cash]

John,

That's just a matter of opinion, and I either method will work - it's just different ways of carrying the load.

Out of interest, I've just dug my old W.B.McKay's book on joinery to have a look, and McKay shows the braces as per your drawing using two different types of joining against the ledges/jambs. If its of help, I have scanned two diagrams side by side and uploaded them to

(link below) for you to have a look at.

text book is very old, but it clearly shows the correct methods - although you may have to enlarge them using photo editing software to see the detail.

Hope this is of interest to you, and feel free to use any of my stuff in Wiki if its of interest and use (but if I scan something form a book and you use that, please cite any reference that I make with regards to the author).

Cash