Thursday, June 28, 2007Frame and Panel Doors Wood, the old standby, still has some distinct advantages. Well-built wooden doors age gracefully, acquiring nicks and scratches that become part of a home's legacy Wooden doors are warm to the touch and close with a mellow "thunk." The appearance of wood is hard to fake convincingly (though fiberglass doors come close). Wood also permits more latitude in surface treatment than any other material.Since wood moves, it's impractical to make doors out of one solid slab, which will inevitably warp or split. The solution is to make frame-and-panel doors, which are the norm in traditional style homes. This style of door effectively counteracts the seasonal shrinking and swelling of wood. The inner edges of the stiles and rails of frame-and-panel doors have molding designs (called sticking), usually with a quarter-round profile. Large door manufacturers don't usually offer a choice of sticking profiles, but custom cabinetmakers can match just about anything ...for a price. The panels are also raised, or molded, meaning that the panel's center is thicker than its tapered edges. As with sticking profiles, raised-panel designs aren't usually an option unless you're dealing with a custom woodworker. Flat panels, which are common in nineteenth-century farmhouses and early twentieth-century bungalows, are sometimes substituted for raised panels. Paint-grade, solid wood doors are usually constructed of white pine or fir because of the inherent stability of these woods. Stain-grade doors are often constructed of hardwoods. While some hardwoods, such as mahogany, are as stable as white pine, others, such as oak, have a tendency to warp. Exterior doors are particularly vulnerable to warping because of the extreme differences between interior and exterior temperature and humidity. To make stile-and-rail doors more.
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