Castle Door Project.

Made the jig to hold the top rail that has the curved pattern on it. Removed the fence on the shaper and installed the rub bearing. I did it with a top pattern so I didn't need to adjust the height of the cutter, so that cuts down on some setup time.


And then it looks like this.

Got the door in clamps. Sprayed the backs of the panels to seal them. Put tape on the corners so I could put a spot of glue and then glued the panels back to back. I put stain on the tongues of the panels so when they move with seasons you don't see a light line.

In clamps.



And then out of clamps.



Still need to cut the curve on the top of the door.

Worked on 2 of the curved headers. Cut some Oak and Poplar flitches about 1/8" thick and 3 7/8" wide and went to my buddies with the widebelt and sanded them down to a little under 3/32". 8 of them made just under 3/4". Have to account for glue thickness.

He made me these templates on the CNC. I joined the 2 of them together with the Poplar spacers to make them 3 7/8" wide.



After some testing I decided to put some slots in them near the ends for clamps.
This one has a header that I glued up and will stay on the form overnight for the glue to get rigid. I needed the clamps for the next one.





Here we are fully clamped up. This one has the Oak on the top of the curve because it's the curved base for the upper curved window.

Did the scary part. Cut the curved top as a unit. It's only held by clamps so far because I need to be able to access the interior when I put the angled supports that surround the top curved window. Took me 45 minutes to gain the courage to make the cut. If I screwed it up 12 hours of work would be down the drain.

Here's the 1st cut. I did that and went home LOL. No, I'm not kidding. Dinner was ready.


I did the second cut, had a lot more confidence. Still had to take a trim off of it after I did a test on the door. I need 3/32" on either side and one was a bit more than an 1/8".

Then I made the parts for the straight boxes. And put the 35º angle on them, put a biscuit in the joint and then screwed them together since no one was going to see it anyway. Cut the 35º miter on the trim part of the box and wa-la


Here's the curved to straight miter joint. Just pushed together, no glue or clamps.

The black spot is where the sawblade washer rubbed because it's right at the limit of my saw. It'll sand out.

Screws screws and more screws



Clamps clamps and more clamps.



Should be the last laminated curve for this project. Next comes the curved trim. That's segmented.

Made the angled blank into a nice curve.



Fits nicely on the bent lamination. The lamination had some spring back. More than the other two. Not sure why. I usually have great luck with the thinner laminations. That won't matter much when the solid curve is glued to it. Won't be going anywhere.

Founds some benches under my horizontal disease. 😆

I cleaned those two benches so I could start assembling the surround for the door. Jamb is 4 7/8" wide along with the curved header. Instead of using miters I did a butt joint which seemed easier because I don't have to cut a miter on the curve. Took a while to dial the miter on the straight jamb. Mostly because I didn't realize how crooked I had the parts. That's what that center board is. The two ends are square, the length is what the opening is. I measured down from the miter and put a mark on the jamb and did the same on the other. I was off by about 3". After I clamped the board in things went much smoother with a squared up unit.



Multiple hours later I had the jambs screwed together and the miters on the curve and straight trim cut and pocket screwed together.



And here's the top curve



And the two miters which came out very nice.

And more clamps.....

Moving along on the doorway. Showed the pic of the trim getting glued on. I put a cove on the inside edge and carved out the corners. Other side I'll pre-route the corners on the curve and straight pcs so I don't have to do that. I didn't know what I was going to do with the profile so I hadn't thought about it. But if I didn't to it that way it would have been really tough to clamp it on, so it worked out for me in the end. The other trim pc will be applied in the field after the door is in the RO.

After the glue up I worked on getting the angled members on. Had to move everything back to the way it was and level everything up good so nothing is tweaked. The floor isn't flat and it's an ongoing thing to make sure the woodwork is flat and true.

Used the CAD angles and they were spot on. The distance around the curve was perfect at 15". Pretty shocked it was so consistent. The side to side up top was shy on each side by a 32nd and down below was good at 15" again. Worked out really good. I had something tweaked when I went to put the outermost right angle board on. The inside box was out of square by 1/32". I can't imagine it tweaked it as much as it was though. So I did one side, undid it and did the other side and then put the screws back in and it all worked out. Measurements are good at 3 5/8" front and back so I'm happy.



Just for fun I put the internal box together to see how it looks. I have to cut an angle cut on the outside corners of the curve miter and that will mate with the angle part that covers the box.


Have to put some kind of a sill inside the window bays and then some uprights to get the profiles of the window to line up with the door and miter and assemble the other curved trim pc and then it's onto making the 3 windows.

Couple of clamps


Even on a ladder I'm having a tough time getting the whole thing in.


Right leg



Base.



Top.



Intersection.



Now I have to figure out how I'm going to flip this thing over by myself and then I have to do the two angle wings and that'll complete the building of the entryway. Still have to mortise the hinges and make the windows and the stops to hold them in.

Apparently not out of my range for flipping over.




Pretty impressed it stood up steady by itself. And it wasn't even tippy.

The bottom pic is the side I have some more work to do on. Clip the corners of the curved trim and then make the angled trim to connect the inside and outside together and glue it up. Hope I didn't forget anything.

Got the two side lites done.

Working on the curved window for the doorway. It's not like any other curved window I've made before. All of them have had a curved top that ends up being a half circle, ellipse or arch and the bottom leg is straight. So the stick cut goes onto the curve and the bottom leg is essentially with square ends for their copes.

This one has angled sides and a curve on the top and bottom. Racked my brain for a bit to get this to work but came up with the solution and then ended up modifying it when I was actually able to look at the parts and the jig for a much better outcome. My original plan had me destroying the pattern while the 2nd version wasn't a destructive cut.

I made my blanks for the curves and then put them onto my pattern of the actual size of the window.



They are screwed from the rear into areas that will be cut off later on.



Then as you can see in the above picture I have the pattern against my tablesaw fence with the wood parts facing down on the table. The fence is set up at 1 3/4" so it will remove 1 7/8" from the Oak. I need the curves to have 5/8" left over from the 2 1/2" from the side stile.


I pushed the boards through the saw and it left me this.



The nice part about it is I still have the pattern intact so if I need to do this again I can.

I put the copes on the ends of the "curves" still in their uncut forms and did a test and it took me a while to find where on the stile the parts go. It's very picky and will only work properly at the exact distance. The top and bottom of the window will measure about 14 15/16" all around. Took me about 10 minutes of moving things around to find that sweet spot.



It's really hard to see in the picture but there are lines on the top and bottom parts that show the actual curve. The top part on the right you can see the best.

Got all the parts made. Now I have to figure out how I'm gonna glue this up. If I want to embarrass myself and use screws or do it the right way and just use clamps. The screws would never show, they'd be on the edge. But I'd know they were there LOL.

Got it glued up. I used screws. But not "that way". I used them as clamp extenders. A trick I've used for decades when working with angles.





While I was waiting for the window glue up to cure I started making the curved quarter round that will go into the top and bottom after the glass goes in.


And here's the nearly finished window. Cut to size and fitted. Came out really well I think. Was worried about the straight copes meeting with the curved rails. Usually the mullion is only an inch or so wide. These are 3" including the beads, 2" on the flats. Can you see it? Sure, it's about 5-7 thousandths. I'll stick a bit of glue in there and sand over it and the sawdust will fill the "gap"

Holy cow... It fits!!

Well ya.