Wood Screen Door

[rock]

Can anyone point me to info on building wood screen doors. Websites, mag articles, books... My searches have turned up mostly main doors. Thanks, CHARLIE

[Rob V]

be able to figure it from the pic - or pay the 5 bux for the plans.

[No]

I build one sort of by eye once. I saw a really cool looking screen door on a house I rented on Jt John USVI. My wife thought I was nutz for taking about 30 digital pictures. From those pictures I made my door. Not too hard.

What kicked my arse in the design was the necessity for curved screen moldings. What a PIA. The original was teak with an oil finish of some sort and bronze hardware. Mine was fir and painted (To fit with rest of building). But the overall design and construction was similar.

Good luck.

[Larry Jaques]

On Thu, 19 May 2005 08:20:31 GMT, the inscrutable rock spake:

"Building Doors & Entryways" by Craig Weis has a chapter (11 page section) on a tenoned screen door. Sterling Pubs. 0-8069-8168-7

You could probably substitute a screen frame in the free plans for a storm door from PM here:

Then if you have any more free time, consider this necessary project:

;)

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[Rossmoor Galoot]

Workbench magazine volume 53 #5 has the plans that I built my door to a number of years ago. I substituted solid panels for the screens on the bottom. Plansnow.com has the same article available for $5.95 if you can't get your hands on the magazine.

[Phillip Hallam-Baker]

It really depends what you want the screen door to look like.

I went to Home Depot and they had a pile of utter crap made out of pieces of thin pine stapled together. Fortunately none of them were big enough for my house where the front door is 40" by 84" or the wife would have bought one.

What I did instead was get some 2x4 lengths of mahoghany that was intended for making decks (probably seple) and ripped one in half to make the rails and made the stiles out of full width boards. I used mortise and tennon joinery and a standard window sash making set from freud to put an ogee flute on the inside surfaces.

The result is a door that is not overpowering despite the size and weight, the rails are 1 1/2" wide but 1 3/4" thick so there is a lot of strength there which you need if you have such a big door.

Main hassle I am having is working out how to keep the screen door material installed on the lower half despite the efforts of the 4 year old to pull it out. I am trying to work out how to retrofit additional bracing into the lower panel this winter.

Of course as soon as I finish it I discover that what she really wanted is central air conditioning for the whole house.

[Art and Diane]

And Wood magazine had a plan a few years ago too. I used it to built a screen/storm back door out of quarter sawn white oak to match an original (or at least very old) front door on my 99 year old house. It was my first real use of mortis and tenon joinery and raised panels and has held up very well. I put the panels on the bottom so the dogs wouldn't scratch the screens and used an interchangable screen and storm window on the top.

Art

Rossmoor Galoot wrote: