The Carpinteria Door Project

The Entry Door is called
The Carpinteria
It is 42" x 85" x 1-3/4"
It is Old Growth Redwood with
Figured Redwood Panels
The glass ids tempered and insulated Seedy Reamy
and the Eyebrow and Dentil Shelf are Redwood

Here is the completed door
Here is a close-up of the upper half of
The Carpinteria
Here is another view of The Carpinteria

The panels are bookmatched flat sawn curly Old Growth redwood
Here is a close up of the Redwood Panels
Nice ..... huh !!
The Eyebrow if bent laminated Redwood

and the eyebrow "floats "off the door on Mahogany pins
The dentil shelf is attached with stainless steel screws and capped with beautiful pins of Pao Brasil
The glass is tempered and insulated art glass called Seedy Reamy

....... and here are the Boys !

Here is a view of the drawing on the
front of the house

Here are the dimensions

Here is a drawing of The Carpinteria

Here is the History of how this door was constructed

Here is the "rough stock" that will make this door

Every piece is cut oversized and the joined straight and then surfaced to thickness

Then cut to exact length

Here are some more pictures of the rough stock

Here I am cutting the template for the arched top and mid rail

...... and here I am dimension sanding the top and mid rail to 1-3/4" thick

Then I transfer the arc to the pieces

Drill the top piece for the mullions and pre drill and fill the holes with dowels ...... cool trick

Then I cut the arcs

and you can see the dowels that are left and after planing they will accept machining

The I "smooth" the arc with a 100 year old plane, called a compass plane because the sole is adjustable

Then comes the hand sanding

Then I fit each piece ... one by one

... know this ..... a perfect joint does not allow the "union" of the woods to fail

and I spend a lot of time making sure that each piece fits .... "just right"

Then we glued up The Carpinteria and remove all the excess glue we can

... and yes ....... scrub the corners with a toothbrush and clean water ..... then blow off the water with compressed air

Here the door will cure for at leas 3 days

And then we're ready to sand the door. Here Jason is doing all of the scraping first

The we start machine sanding the door all the way down to 220 grit

And of course ....... hand sand all of the molded edging .... inch by inch

Then I heat up my signature

and place it of the hinge edge

This means I (we are) am proud enough to tell folks who made this piece of fine woodworking

Not forgetting to sand the edges

and "back bevel" the opening edge

Here is the door ready to be sealed and oiled

Even the inside of the panels and glass gets 4 coats of our varnish-oil

... yes 4 coats and we wait at least 3-4 days between coats

Here I made templates to mail of to ThermalSun ...... who will make the insulated and tempered glass units

Here are the panel blanks with the Redwood edging being applied

and here are the panel blanks after having the figured Redwood panels glued on

The panels are being sanded on my wide belt sander ....... they are curly Redwood and bookmatched to each other

Here I cut the arc in the tops of the panels

and the cut the rebates

Here are all 3 panels

Last step is to chamfer the panel edge ...... just to add another dimension

Here are the panels ready to be hand sanded

and here they are with their first of 4 coats of oil.

There are the pieces that will make up the bent laminated eyebrow

They are sanded to dimension

The clued in this form and allowed o cure for 4 days

Here is the blank out of the press

Then cut to width and sanded ..... and sanded

After machining we have a "sneak" preview as ti its' proportions ..... Great !!

Here are the panels .... the dentil shelf .... and the eyebrow ..... all be saturated with our varnish oil.

.......whadaythink ?? ..... not bad !!

Here the glass is being caulked with a special caulk (that turns clear) and will be covered with curved steam bent stops

Here are all of the stops laid out and precut

Then we caulk the floating panels and clean up any squeeze out

Here the door will lay flat while the caulk cures for 3 or 4 days

... so I start to layout the eyebrow

The redwood eyebrow will be attached with Genuine mahogany dowels that UI made in shop

Then I layout the dentil shelf placement

and the dentil posts

Then glue the dentil post to the door

and glue on the eyebrow

The dentil shelf is attached with stainless steel screws but I cap them with wood pins ..... here I am chiseling the diamond

These pins are made from a wonderful reddish wood called Pao Brasil

Here is a close-up of the attached eyebrow

and here is the door complete

and ........... here is the door complete!!

These are the same at the top of the page

........ enjoy !! ........