So, for the shed project I'm working on, we've gotten to the point where we need some doors on this sucker. I tried making a couple by simply screwing some 2x4's together like they were studs, but we quickly discovered that without a diagonal brace it's not stable. So unstable, in fact, that simply sinking a second screw at a corner could pull it out of shape. The diagonal worked, but it was a major pain to make adjustments to the door: finding out you need to shave off 1/8" means having to basically take the door apart to do the cut. There's also the problem that it's kind of hard to find threshhold flashing that's 3 3/4" wide.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpfRr8K_uYhNCB7H_4lk3CTaaSu6D8eiLPPb_JCEvAgMHjglpg8HmMotSz9NzNx5Z5kvGzjgK3rU7y5u0XJ9Ur6scMOGYPS7plRy037O22JG4cJm2grYshD2RDPl9SFZI5uSnVqvS9cRC0/s200/IMG_20110805_203526.jpg)
So, I decided to finally try out a lap join and just turning the 2x4's so their faces were to the front. It's a heck of a lot more work and takes longer, but holy cow was it worth it. I basically ended up with a much thinner door (1 1/2") that fits the flashing perfectly, is much lighter, doesn't need another brace, and is dead simple to get to 90 degrees in the corners.
The technique I used was pretty caveman-style. Basically just measured the boards to fit (no need to knock of 3/4" on the ends since we're going to lap them), cut, and then marked off 3 3/4" back on the board. I then set the circular saw to 3/4" depth and just made a bunch of cuts across each end of the board that needed a lap, knocked out the remaining wafers with a hammer, and planed down the lap to get it as close to 3/4" thick as I could.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjbZL4psSPLmVKA0GpuubFA3ZJu2judkvPNZL8knN4bh-8CRTTNc3IDO7TYsWiTdOXM6Bff0gVFq794Opz1nYy4oXH7y-cJSTzZFRXRhC1z1JJgLx9-i3x2O1U5xbNn_KR7Ov9xZEXkC29/s200/IMG_20110805_203426.jpg)
The board on the left is what it looks like after planing, the right side is the before photo. I did just enough for the lap to kind of "feel" smooth, but as you can see it's still got the marks from the circular saw in there. I tried using a chisel to clean up the lap, but I found that just using the plane got the job done quicker and avoided the risk of gouging deeper into the wood.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTKulXPBfUCeWB0l_TMhic_9mQNVSVlYmBIchr8TPL3bgO4bbdGOBVIh47RBt96Ax3DZQ4TRnNx5TCUEECfmE95DtYA-ClTRog3He0tvx1DIaaksZjvC7r4Bb4W0ManxAMO8HSAiCM5sR6/s200/IMG_20110805_203541.jpg)
After cleaning out the laps, the last step was simply to assemble the boards. What I did for that was to simply lay the stiles (sides) of the door down on their backs, and put the rails (top and bottom) across the laps. I started at one corner with a 1" screw in the center, used a speed square to make sure it was 90, and then sunk in a second screw in to lock the join in place.
In the end, it was a wash in terms of the time it took to make the frame. The lap join took a lot less time (and frustration) to assemble, but also took a lot more time to prepare the materials. And a lot of that time was spent with the ciruclar saw (ow, my ears). There's probably an easier, more efficient way to do the lap cuts, but for a first stab at it worked out pretty well.
No comments:
Post a Comment