Many people think when they purchase a solid oak door, they are getting an oak door. However, what they do not realise is they are getting a chip board door with a thin oak veneer wrapped around it. Below is a cross section of a door which I had to take 100mm off the bottom and as you can see the customer was not getting an oak door
The reason is it is a lot cheaper to buy a manufactured door made in China than anywhere else and that is what is appealing.
Don’t get me wrong I have made many doors and they look amazing and are still in use, but a door made by the local joiner is clearly going to be more expensive than one done in a factory.
The other problem with a veneered door is you only have 9mm of solid timber on the edges to make the door fit your opening.
So if you have a 31″ opening you can’t get a door to
fit as they are 30″ and 33″ wide? Wrong! I have on many occasions cut
the door down (this cannot be done by hand it must be done on a wall or dim
saw) and glue bigger pieces of oak to the sides of the door to make it fit the
opening. Simple.
The joint is barely visible but if you look on the left of the stile you can just see where I have jointed and blended in a 30mm thick strip to make the door fit the opening.
As you can see the new fitted door looks great in the old opening. Please note this does add extra money to the cost of fitting. However, if you have one odd sized door and 7 standard sized doors; this will save you money.
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