Door How-To
How to Build a Door

Here are some common terms in door construction:

Stiles: The vertical frame components of the door.
Rails: The horizontal frame components of the door.
Center Stile: A vertical divider located between the stiles of the door.
Raised Panel: A flat wooden section with routed edges fitted into slots in the stiles and rails.
Tenon: An extended piece of wood on the end of a rail that fits into a pocket, or "mortise" in the stile.
Mortise: A pocket cut in a stile that matches the tenon on the end of a rail.

Basic Steps

There are 10 basic steps to creating a door:

1. Create your plan to include your reative design and door part size calculations.
   
   
2. Select your material (stock).
   
   
3. Mill your stock to the correct thickness (you can either do it yourself with a planer or have your lumber
   supplier do it for you).
   
   
4. Rip the material to the correct width and cut the parts to length.
   
   
5. Prepare material for panels (if needed).
   
   
6. Set rail bit to correct height to rout stub tenons on all rails.
   
   
   
   
   Then, using Freud's patented system, remove the top of the rail bit to create extended tenons for
   load bearing joints.
   
   
   
7. Rout profiles on edges of all stiles and rails.
   
   
   
8. Cut mortises in your stiles to match the long tenons on your rails. You may either use a mortiser or
   an easy-to-build router jig which is detailed in the Freud poster.
   
   
9. If you are using raised panels, rout the profiles of your raised panels.
   
   
   
   
10. Assemble your door.