Hope I can find this later. New to this, probably have every Fine Home Building and Fine Wood Working mags thanks to wood shop in high school.
Anyway, I have searched to no avil on how to hang dutch doors (I even wrote Taunton! They did not take me up, yet they have never written about it.) Anyway, I have hung 2 doors. The first was VERY bad, the second was good. Yet I still want to find a good instruction in the Fine Home Building way. Not with a lot of down talk and all those diagrahms.
Thanks John from Orange County, CA12
Replies
Gary Katz's book is the best doorhanging book around, and has a section on installing dutch doors:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1561586358/ref=sib_rdr_dp/102-0407650-1968169?%5Fencoding=UTF8&no=283155&me=ATVPDKIKX0DER&st=books
Or you can check out his website at http://www.garymkatz.com/
Thanks SOO much!
oc/ John
Welcome to BT.
Dutch doors are one of those things that seem to have fallen out of use more for being a pain to do than for any other reason (that, and they make lousy exterior doors).
The thing to consider is that it's two doors hung in the one frame--the adjustments and "tweaks" just get done twice (and not necessarily the same, either).
Heaven help you if the customer wants "cafe" dutch doors, as that just complicates the hinging. On hinging, for a dutch door, I like to see three per panel. That's a top and a bottom, and another 1/3 down from the top--this last one is what will help carry loads and make adjustments simpler. I like to see a beefed-up rough frame, too--but that can be hard when the lighting duud has specified six switches next to the door.
The bottom door panel needs to be tough, too. The joints in the frame need reinforcement, as the bottom panel gets "ridden" on, even inadvertently. Any play in the door panel out of square take the door out of adjustment--giving you a nice warantee callback that is neither quick not easy.
But that's just my experience, other differ.
Thanks for the input. Thing is here in sunny southern Cal they are still popular. I just have never seen anything in print on them. I have gone back through all the past issues of FHB. Unless I passed it over... I'm pretty sure I have every issue printed. But with the help of you and the previous response, I really appreciate it. I think I'll be coming here a lot more often! Oh, I really like that tripling of the hinges! Makes a lot of sence!.
oc /John
One more quick one, which do you start with? The top or the bottom?
Thanks again.
oc/ John
top or bottom...
no....
put it together and do it as a one piece unit...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
How do you do it as one piece? Screw some strips front and back?
oc/ john
dutch doors are meant to lock together on their own..
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
yes, or clamps, or the lock, but you will multiply the adjustment fine tuning tenfold if you think of them as two doors. They have to swing as one and close as one
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Do you use a standard router/template or what then? Or have you made a custom one?
oc/ john
While i just bought a template, I have done more with a chisle than anything, and am pretty handy free hand with a router.That is not the issue - which tool to use. The important thing is to have both doors straight in line with each other and with the Jamb. Either assemble the jamb leg to the pair of doors clqmped together on the door table or use a straightedge to transfer one to the other.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
they should be ready to go...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
multiply the adjustment fine tuning tenfold if you think of them as two doors
May be a matter of perception. If I go into the install thinking two doors' worth of adjustment, I wind up less frustrated.
Installed as one piece, set and swinging as one peice, once they are unlocked, they "want" adjusting as individuals. Or, at least that's my experience.
(Might be more fair to mention that almost every one I've done was in some sort of medical practice and had a shelf on one or both sides of the bottom leaf--dang things aren't even hung ans there's some dufus hangin on them, or put a 40# toolbaox on the shelf, what have you . . . )
C'est la vie.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)