Doormaking: A Do-It-Yourself Guide

I can't believe this book isn't in print anymore. This should be in every woodworker's book collection. This is not a DIY guide. It covers everything from design and science of doors including interior, exterior, and cabinet doors. I highly recommend this reference.

If you want to get inspired, and learn the secrets of doormaking, this is a wonderful book. But here's either a warning or a tip, depending on how you care to look at things. This book is exactly the same, I mean exactly the same as John Birchard's "Doormaking Patterns & Ideas", which you can currently buy used for less than $1. How did I find this out? By unknowingly buying both books and discoverying, to my disappointment, that they are the same book, by the same publisher, with all the same text and pictures, but a different cover and title. Save yourself some money and buy the cheap one. Don't buy both!

The best

For me, the biggest disappointment of this book was the complete failure to include any discussion of what wood varieties have the best properties for exterior doors. Yes, all wood shrinks and swells, but some species shrink and swell more than others. Yes, all wood should be protected from the weather, but when the finish fails, some species will decay much faster that others. The author also fails to discuss the importance of grain orientation in minimizing swelling and warping (plainsawn vs. quarter sawn). The long term success of a D.I.Y. door is going to depend on selecting the right materials, but the author offers almost no guidance about wood selection. The last few pages do discuss which wood species work best with what kind of finishes, but choosing the wrong wood for your door is likely to result in more serious issues than peeling paint - like warped frames and seasonal sticking.The book may work better as a source of inspiration than it does as a source of information. There are some interesting doors shown, but the the uncoated paper prevents the photographs from having enough contrast and resolution to really see the details.Bottom line, unless you are already knowledgeable about wood as an engineering material, this book, alone, does not contain enough information to build a door.

This is exactly what I was looking for. This book gives instructions for making a wide variety of beautiful doors. It covers several types of doors, and gives a number of examples of each type. It illustrates each door with a photograph and a scale drawing. Step-by-step instructions are not always given, but there is enough detail that a non-expert can understand how to build the door. The instructions and illustrations are clear. There are some nice color photographs, too. It also covers door hardware and how to hang a door.

It's difficult to find a book that deals with actually building doors from scratch. This book is very good and covers the material well. The designs included in the book are interesting and give good ideas. I bought another book by this author called Doormaking Patterns and Ideas, thinking it would have different information. The books have identical information, just different covers and titles. The publishing dates are different.I would recommend this book for someone who wants to build doors.

This book for having been copywrited in 1999 and released in 2014 has little to no modern techniques for door making. The images and examples seem to go from rustic to early seventies style doors. This was a bad buy for me and will probably go into my library to be thrown away at some time in the future without even being referenced. Very disappointed

I suppose if you have a door or two under your belt, this book may be helpful. I expected more detailed project plans and instructions. The book was also a bit dated.

Exactly what i was looking for. Great for beginners and semi pro's.... Can not wait to start working on my first door

The titles of the chapters:1 Designing and Installing a Door2 Batten Doors3 Layered Doors4 Edge-Joined Doors5 Frame-and-Panel Doors6 Miscellaneous Doors7 Basic Spindle Shaper Techniques for Doormaking8 Finishes-Maintenance and RepairIn this amazing guide you'll find everything you need to know to make several types of doors, more than 50 different doors with detailed descriptions of door structure and hardware.Also includes an interesting chapter on finishing and maintenance of doors and a few words about repairs.