Doormaking: Materials, Techniques, and Projects for Building Your First Door

Making a door is easier than you think—here's everything you need to know to build a door that will last for years and you'll use proudly every day.

Few pieces of furniture, save perhaps chairs, work as hard as doors. Building them to last, especially exterior doors, takes knowledge and experience that don’t come from making other types of furniture, such as tables and bookcases. Doormaking: Materials, Techniques and Projects for Building Your First Door by woodworker Strother Purdy gathers all the information and guidance that both beginning and intermediate woodworkers need to be successful making their first door.

While covering the construction of the eight most popular doors, Doormaking starts first by addressing the fundamentals: the basics of good design and proper construction technique, the pros-and-cons of common materials including wood and sheet goods, interior and exterior finishes, hardware and the fine points of hanging doors.

Once those key elements are covered, Doormaking offers project chapters that walk the reader step-by-step through the construction of eight essential doors, explaining design and material choices in specific contexts, tool options and other considerations. The first four projects are easily accessible to a beginner while the remaining projects offer up some more challenging details for the intermediate woodworker. Also included are sidebars containing amusing anecdotes and mistake stories—each delivering tips as well as details for hanging a door—and an inspiring gallery of doors that are sure to inspire.

Doormaking: Materials, Techniques and Projects for Building Your First Door is a must for any woodworking hobbyist, professional craftsman, or DIY homeowner.

Strother Purdy began his woodworking career learning to make solid wood interior paneling and cabinetry at Rodger Reid, in New Preston, CT, during summer vacations in college. After that, he served as an editor at the Taunton Press, first at Fine Woodworking magazine, then in the books department. He has written tool reviews, articles and the best-selling book Traditional Box Projects. During his time at Taunton, he replaced all the doors in his house, including the front and back doors. They are all still working, in spite of raising two kids through their teenage years.

Purdy left Taunton to start his own business designing and making furniture and cabinetry to order in his two-car garage – a roomy space with only 7 ft. ceilings. Naturally, two of his earliest commissions were very tall bookcases, both over 9 ft. tall. They were built horizontally and assembled outside in good weather. Spurred on by this spacial dilemma, Purdy built a shop with 11 ft. ceilings. Naturally since then, customers have wanted mostly tables, beds, front doors, buffets, the occasional kitchen, even music stands and salad bowls―but nothing taller than 7 ft, including doors, which as we all know are almost always 80 in. tall.