Hi: I am about to embark on making two pair of French doors for my own house. I want to close off the sun porch for the winter and not heat it.
I have made a lot of furniture, www.bobkissane.com but not much large scale millwork. I will need to gear up for some cope and stick joinery and am lookng for opinions on whether you think I should invest in a small shaper and power feed, which is the way I made doors in a former job, or can the task be accomplished using my home made router table and router cutters? Is a feeder essential? The stiles will be stave core and should be flat. Attached is a sketchUp of the design. Thanks.
Bob
Replies
I wouldn't use true cope and stick joinery for a passage door. Not enough strength in the joints. You can get router bits (for use in a router table) to cut modified cope & stick, allowing you to use true tennon joinery at the corners, e.g., http://www.toolstoday.com/p-5902-entry-door-router-bits.aspx
Mike Hennessy
Pittsburgh, PA
Thanks, Mike: I am planning to use mortise and tenon, or floating tenons, for strength, but was unaware of that Amana product. I wonder why it is rated 1 star out of 5?The real question in my mind is whether or not you can get the true cut that you want in a cope and stick joint over the length of an 84" stile, as well as the coped end cuts of the rails, from a router table with no power feed or hold-downs, other than a finger board or two.Bob
One person gave it one star,but did not give any reason. Here is another site with perhaps more info:
http://www.woodcentric.com/product.aspx?parId=21&catId=1151
Don't know about that specific bit -- it was just the first one I came across in a web search to show a pic of what I was thinking about.
Cope & stick bits that just cut the sticking, and a matching cope, while allowing the builder to use traditional tenon joinery are very useful for entry or passage doors, since they can be used on pretty much any thickness of door.
Another alternative is to just mill sticking on all interior edges and then remove and miter the sticking at the intersections. No coping involved, so you can get by without having to invest in some pretty expensive single-purpose bits.
Mike HennessyPittsburgh, PA
The bits referenced above (Check Amana Tool for the complete line) will allow cope and stick mortise and tenon joinery. The cope bit allows the tenon to pass over it much like the old Rockwell/Delta stub shaper spindles do. This allows for integral tenons of whatever length you choose.
As for the router, well, they make router bits so it must work, eh? One can also buy crown molding router bits. A few minutes thought will lead you to realize that there is more to it than just a router bit.
If you must, then use a beefy table with a heavy fence and great holdowns and catch tables. Make plenty of samples first so you can anticipate which is the chicken and which is the egg - cope or stick, mortise or tenon. Speaking of chickens, don't chicken out on the M&T and just use copes and stub tenons. You loose critical glue surface without tenons. There are several ways to remove the mold for the glass, and think these through to select the one that gives you the most accuracy so you muntins will seat properly.
Once you go thru all the setups and adjustments and re-adjustments, you will wish you had a shaper and feeder. A shaper means 500# or more, 6 hp or more, with a real, 4 wheel Big Boy feeder.
By the way, French doors are made in France. As I guess it, you will be making U.S. doors. You really just want to make paired divided light doors. Not true divided light doors, either - just divided light paired doors. Two of my pet peeves. The marketing people have us all thinking stupid on this.
Dave S
http://www.acornwoodworks.com
Thanks, Dave. I'm with you on the need for M and T's. I'm starting to think that, for my shop and capabilities, and since I'll probably only do this once, I might just make square-edged rails and stiles and add moldings on both sides of the glazing. I know it's a lot of work, but so is gearing up a shaper setup that I don't presently have. I like to know that I have enough control over the job to feel confident that it will come out right. I intend to stave-core the stiles and am already setting myself up for a major investment of time and material. In general, I'll usually trade some time for the security of having more control...get it right the first time. That will also allow me to pre-stain more parts.
Bob
Seems like the slightest variance in material thickness would screw up the fit, no? This stuff is hard enough to get clean when you can reference the face side for the entire cut. Having to flip the piece over and reference the other face for the second half of the cut seems like it could create problems.Bob
Seems like the slightest variance in material thickness would screw up the fit, no? This stuff is hard enough to get clean when you can reference the face side for the entire cut. Having to flip the piece over and reference the other face for the second half of the cut seems like it could create problems.Bob
Bob,
No router set up will handle the cope stick and tenon for that because they don't do the tenon long enough, and I assume you want to do a full tenon, otherwise I will proceed no further.
A "small shaper" will not do it either, because those cutter sets for this application are huge and usually are run on spindles of 32mm plus in diameter. A feeder is great but not essential. To run even a medium cutter set as pictured you need a hefty shaper-see the diameter is 250mm!
So for a one off like you envisage I would just go with straight shouldered tenons , through and wedged, and do bolection mouldings on one side to hold the panels in rebates and rout the other side with a suitable profile. Or you can do bolection moulds on both sides.You can run the bolections on a router table very nicely.
So unless you want to get into shaper stuff on an ongoing basis (mighty fine way to go) then it would not be economic to buy a hefty or even small shaper and feeder just for the one (small) project.
Philip Marcou
Edited 8/15/2008 9:05 pm by philip
Philip,"No router set up will handle the cope stick and tenon for that because they don't do the tenon long enough, and I assume you want to do a full tenon, otherwise I will proceed no further."Actually there are router bits that produce cope and stick joints with long tenons. The ones here will make a tenon of any length:http://www.freudtools.com/p-418-french-door-bit-set.aspx
Charles M
Freud America, Inc.
Charles, thanks for that information. Would you be able to show the set up so we can see how it works? I still can't understand how it could do a tenon length of say 4 inches. I am used to to the shaper sets which do all in one pass and much excitement.Philip Marcou
Philip,
Happy to oblige. The design of our large door making bits allows for the removal of the end of the cope cutter so that it performs like the old stub spindle shaper cutters:
View Image
The French Door making set has only the cope part of the cutter since no profile is needed for the back of the door. It is essentially the same as the bit pictured in step 4.
Charles M
Freud America, Inc.
I got it now, thanks.
That is a mighty useful cutters set. If I had been in Bob's shoes I would be looking for someone for whom I could make a door or two, so that I could justify acquiring the set. But then I am acquisitive when it comes to tools and machines (;).Philip Marcou
Bob,
Here is a cutter set for that application-see the dimensions and length of the tenon. It would cost more than a small shaper and it requires a feeder or sliding table and clamp facility.Philip Marcou
Edited 8/15/2008 9:57 pm by philip
Bob,
I have had good success making cope and stick passage doors on a standard router table - no feeder - using standard cabinet door 1/2" shaft router sets.
I do it in two passes. That's what makes it doable with a regular router table setup. I add floating tenons for strength.
I have a sample of this in my sample drawer and have photographed it. Sorry. I never got the trick of properly sizing these photos, but I hope they help.
Frank
Frank: This looks promising. If you produce each profile in two passes, does that mean that you flip each piece over and reference the second pass off the other face? If so, how do you deal with slight variations in stock thickness? If not, does that mean that the bit can be flipped over and raised to give you the setup you need for the second pass, referenced from the same face as the first pass? By the way, the pictures you attached loaded quickly and seem fine to me.Bob
Bob
I flip the stock, cutting one side on each pass so that the router only has to do half the work per pass.
Before routing the cope and stick profiles, I have thicknessed all the stock using a planer so there is no variation in thickness.
It would be hard to do this without properly prepared stock (faced, planed, jointed and ripped to an exact and consistant standard.)
If you are going to attempt to do this with S4S stock off the shelf, it could be hard. Not impossible, but hard.
If you don't have access to a surface planer, perhaps you could get your hardwood supplier to thickness the stock for you?
Frank
Frank: I do have the wherewithal to joint and surface rough stock, but I think I can still get a variance of a few thousandths of an inch in thickness. It seems to me that there is NO room for even that much slop in a cope and stick joint. Am I worrying too much?Bob
Bob,
I think you're worrying too much. That sample I photographed was in the drawer for about 10 years and it's still good to go.
None of the doors I've made using that technique have ever failed, and they glue up tight and clean.
As long as you mill your stock carefully - thickness all your stock at the same time - and take care to keep the stock flat to the table and against the fence when using the router table (featherboards if you like) you will be fine.
I'd recommend you pick up a hunk of inexpensive 6/4 poplar and work out all your settings and techniques in advance to create a sample.
Give it a go!
Frank
Frank and everyone else: I think that I am going to build the doors with square-edged stiles and rails, mortise and tenon, and make moldings to apply on both faces of the glazing. these doors are being used to close off a sun room for the winter and will not be hit by weather. I feel that the time it will take to create a suitable set-up for running the cope and stick cuts, plus spending $200 on bits that I will probably not use again, is more than I want to invest.Thanks to you all for all the good advice.Bob
bobk,
There is another option that hasn't been suggested: Cutting the molding of your choice, cutting tenons, with square shoulders, per your choice, and chopping the cope- a pocket, not clear across the end of the rails- by hand. Just like in the old days. If you are just building a pair of doors, there aren't that many joints.
Ray
edit: I know, combining hand work with power tools, what is this guy, some kinda nut?
Edited 8/18/2008 8:44 am ET by joinerswork
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bob k <!----><!---->
Aug-17 9:57 am
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43021.17 in reply to 43021.16
<Frank and everyone else: I think that I am going to build the doors with square-edged stiles and rails, mortise and tenon, and make moldings to apply on both faces of the glazing. these doors are being used to close off a sun room for the winter and will not be hit by weather. I feel that the time it will take to create a suitable set-up for running the cope and stick cuts, plus spending $200 on bits that I will probably not use again, is more than I want to invest.>
Bob,
It should be pointed out that you can by divided light doors, made by a millwork company, for probably about what you're going to have invested in the materials. I've seen them for as low as $150.00. And they come with a warranty against warping.
For that price it might be worth your while to put your creative time and talents elsewhere.
Zolton
If you see a possum running around in here, kill it. It's not a pet. - Jackie Moon
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