A single driveway gate with an entrance door fitted in the middle. These gates are heavy so a jockey wheel has been fitted to take the stress off the hinges thus ensuring that the gate will not drop over time. The door opens independently or the whole gate can be opened as a single leaf. Manufactured from tannalised softwood for the frame and tannalised tongue and grove for the panels this should last. Overall its 2.6 Meters wide and 2.2 Meters high. The images accompanying this show the manufacturing then the final piece in situ.
All posts by southamptoncarpenter
What about those Hinges?
Without the correct grade of hinges your doors may fail. Failure doesn’t mean that your door falls off its hinges; normally failure comes in the form of a door starting to stick or rub on the door frame. If it’s sticking along the edge of the door against the frame anywhere above the lock or latch, then the top hinge may have failed. Often it’s the pin that stretches. This is enough to throw the door out towards the frame. Another common symptom is where the lock no longer strikes the plate in the correct place, often leading to the key having to be forced to turn.
Another tell tell sign would be hinges that start to creek – that’s the hinge saying it can’t cope with all the weight. It’s the pin or flange on the knuckle of the hinge physically rubbing metal on metal.
On a regular basis I am asked to hang doors. Often the customer informs me that they have the doors and all the ‘furniture’ (hinges, handles, locks etc.). At the moment oak veneered doors seem to be in vogue. These doors weigh 25kg plus, then you have to consider that the latches and levers or handles add another 2-4kg. The customer can easily have parted with £150-£200 for each door set, but no consideration has been given to the hinges, and more often than not the cheapest are purchased as long as they are the right colour/finish. Those cheap hinges come with screws that I put straight in the bin as they sit proud of the hinge leaf, causing binding which in turn causes the screws to eventually pull out.
So without getting too pedantic about hinges, if time is spent ensuring that the correct grade hinge is used there will be no future problems.
The most important things to consider are the weight of the door and the application. By application I mean is it in a light domestic situation? An office? A potentially high traffic area? Interior or exterior? Fire rated? If that’s the case, is there a door closure? If there is, add 25% to the door mass.
Hinge grades are from 1 to 14, grade 1 being the lightest and grade 14 the heaviest.
The most common ones available are grades 7, 9, 11, 12, and 13. I personally would not use anything under a 5, even for light weight interior panelled doors.
Grade 7: Max door weight 40kg tested to 200,000 cycles (opening and closing a door)
Grade 9: Max door weight 60kg tested to 25,000 cycles
Grade 11: Max door weight 80kg tested to 200,000 cycles
Grade 12: Max door weight 100kg tested to 200,000 cycles
Grade 13: Max door weight 120 kg tested to 200,000 cycles
Also consider that hinges come with or without washers, or with bearings on some of the higher grades. For the door example above, that is a 25-30kg set (door and furniture), I would normally use a grade 7 washered hinge, and as it is an internal door a 75mm hinge x 3 per door would be employed.
If you really want to get into this subject there is a British Standard no.EN1965 that covers the subject comprehensively but I can think of better things to do!
Incidentally there is a patron Saint of hinges called Cardea who in Roman times was celebrated on the 1st of June.
How not to hang a door
This customer employed a cowboy who claimed to be a carpenter if you are the carpenter who tried to fit this door – hang your head in shame. The customer told me that she shopped around and went for the cheapest quote, not a wise decision particularly because the carpenter had no contract to give the customer, and no invoice for the subsequent payment made.There is a saying ‘quality endures long after price is forgotten’
This door was fitted by a person who claims to be a carpenter. What’s wrong?
The latch is not centre and stands proud, this will catch on the door frame or keep and cause endless problems.
The gap at the top is half an inch this is because the door frame itself is not square, that in its self should not be a problem – you shoot the door to the size and shape of the hole .
This is with the door shut, it stands proud by about 1” this is because the door stops were not fitted correctly. It’s a mess!
The hinge has not been set into the door sometimes you need to do this in order to throw the door over to meet the opposite side in order for the latch to strike the plate in this instance that was not the case, also the screws stand proud so when the door is shut it will bind on the hinge causing over time the hinge to fail.
The door does not meet the door stop when closed.
Daylight can be seen at the top of the door.
The result is a door that does not shut properly and really doesn’t function as a barrier between rooms, on this occasion the door was removed and a new one fitted.
Thoughts on a plywood door
If Art is an enhancement of the everyday is this door Art?
Feel the surface of the wood and breathe in the smell of wood. Follow the grain of the wood, the imperfections, the differing tones in the colour and experience the pleasure that comes from noticing these things. Feel that strangely soft surface with your hands; the soft fuzz not yet flattened by the varnish to come – like the soft facial fuzz of your skin; consider the colour and its variations; become aware of the structure of its build, the line of screw heads that mark out the frame that lies between the skin of the ply. Let the size of the hinges hint at the weight they hold. The hinges are magnificent, they are large, their beautiful throat is large. They make their own statement. The rectangular handle in satin steel complements the hinges. Notice the height of the handle. It is not set at regulation height and you must consciously raise your arm a little in order to use it. Perhaps it positions you differently in relation to the door, reminding you that a door is a tactile thing.
Having decided to replace an internal door it was important to me that the new door reflect thoughts I have about the house I live in. This house is 1970s ex council, small and not as solid as earlier models. The ground floor of the house had been altered and is now open plan. This led to thinking about the construction of the whole. How some features seem a little mean, like the cavity walls that were built just slightly narrower than would accommodate insulation. See this in contrast to the staircase, which is solid and generous. The internal doors however are merely functional and carry an overall feeling of lack of care, of being unnoticed. These doors are mass produced, inexpensive and, although adequate, perhaps easily damaged. This is evidenced by one door upstairs that shows the mark of a boot. I suspect a little violence in its history.
Should not an object that is as important to the life of a house as a door deserve better? Artists, architects, designers, have always considered our environment, questioning how we use or abuse it. Art and life are inextricably linked; think of the arts and craft movement, de Stijl and the Bauhaus. Modernist architects, like them or not, were also interested in developing the spaces we live in, mixing art and life. An internal door in the house le Corbusier designed for himself was tall and wide, a part of the whole wall as well as an opening. And now the new turner prizewinners, Assemble, a cross-disciplinary collective of artists, designers and architects, who have won a major art prize yet do not consider themselves artists. Or are they? Everyone mixing art and life.
The places we live in speak of who we are, what we care about, and a door, it seemed to me, could have a story to tell.
So; the door. Made, built, constructed by a craftsman. A carpenter, someone who loves wood, knows wood, knows how to build, to make, to construct a door. A hands-on skill. All this feeds into the story. Examine this door and it will tell you more. You will see how it was made and what it was made of. It was made of plywood. Plywood is a basic economic and ecological material, it shows its structure and you can see the layers that attest to how it was made. It is ‘everyday’, has many uses and comes in different grades. It is unassuming, unpretentious and beautiful. To have a door that revealed how it was made, made of a wood that revealed how it was made, fitted in with the wider concept of the house as structure revealed, the house as installation, and the house as function. The house as a site for art.
A pencil mark notes where measurement was made. A kink in the frame will mark the point of a knot in the wood. Being able to read how this door was constructed adds to the pleasure of this functional object. The outer edge of the softwood frame is visible when you open the door, so too are the layers of 12 mm plywood either side of the frame. Three layers to each sheet of ply thereby marking its own construction. Screw heads testify to the structure of the hidden part of the frame where they fix the plywood outer skin to the pine frame within. A visual reference connecting this modern door to doors in time past. The ‘threshold’ lies at the top of the door along the ceiling mirroring the ‘threshold’ and the door on the floor above. The ground floor flows uninterrupted beneath the door.
This door is not the readymade of Duchamp that is taken out of its original context in order to see it differently or to question what art is. It is the desire to value the everyday object – a strong theme throughout the story of contemporary art – and in turn to value and think differently about the places and spaces we inhabit. This door is connected to ideas of art and architecture and the sheer pleasure to be had in a well-crafted functional object in everyday use.
The aesthetic comes from the materials used and the function of the object; from following the theme of construction and functionality, from valuing skill, craft and the ecological aspect of materials. If art is an enhancement of the everyday then for me this door is art.
Helen Marland February 2016
REPLACEMENT GARAGE DOORS
Exact replica’s were made and fitted to this garage in Southampton. The old doors were made sometime in the 1930s and the customer wanted like for like, the only difference in the method of construction was the way that I fastened the ledges and brace the original being nailed and the nails bent over to clasp the two pieces together, I used a waterproof glue with 40mm brass screws with the screw heads plugged. The originals had two tee hinges per door I fitted three per door.
Replacement of a side gate frame
Replacement of a side gate frame reusing the gate, note the lead ‘hat’ on the new frame, this will prevent the top of the frame from rotting again,also i fix the frame about 1/2″ ( 12mm) off the ground so that no moisture can creep up from ground level, these two simple precautions will extend the life of the timber frame considerably, indeed it will probably last with a proper paint finish until the end of this century!
Replacement of a worn out garage door
This type of up and over steel garage door is still very popular, and these had seen better days. The garage is of a standard precast concrete type.
The replacement garage doors are off the shelf, I did not manufacture them, and they did need some trimming to fit. A new door frame was also fitted; this needed to be rebated to fit the cast concrete profile. The pad bolts have large handles for ease of use, a standard 5 lever mortice sash lock and levers were fitted to the leading door.
Internal French doors installed in Southampton
Internal French doors.
These doors were fitted between a kitchen and lounge, these ‘8 light’ doors let in plenty of light whilst keeping kitchen odours out of the living room. The head –that’s the top part of the frame, had to be thicker than the sides because of the opening height, also the opening was not square, I was able to loose this discrepancy, allowing the doors to be hung square.
The doors will now be varnished by the customer. Note the glass has a plastic film which is taken off after they are varnished.
Porch repairs in Southampton
This porch was in a sound condition apart from the left hand corner section which was rotten at ground level. The wet rot had also infected the bottom of the door frame by a couple of inches.A little tricky but worth the effort tackling this repair, by doing so the cost of a future replacement of the porch was saved which would have been significant in comparision to the cost of repair. The brickwork was also treated with wet rot treatment to make sure no future reoccurance takes place. The whole repair is then finished in a yacht primer ready for finishing by the customer. The question of why in this particular corner did it take hold? i can only assume that the gutter above had a leaking join or the bush next to the porch had grown to close thus creating the perfect conditions for wet rot to flourish, another reason could be that the mitre joint on the hardwood cill had opened up and rain water had sat in the joint.All materials used on this project are Hardwood.
Replacement door in Southampton
Previously a UPVC door was fitted which was not in keeping with the rest of the interior of the house. This particular door lets in light whilst giving privicy with its obscure glass it was fitted inside the porch into the original main entrance opening.
