We have had an eventful couple of days, construction-wise.

First, after months of work, we have the first set of doors complete and up!

It was a lot of work to build these, but I couldn’t be happier with the results!

All the steps to put these together are already fading into memory, but here are some pictures and notes from the process.

The Ponderosa pine was sourced locally through a sawmill up in the Gila Forest near Silver City. They let let us handpick all these boards and centerlined the boards to make the widths precise and the edges square.

After we cut the boards, we routed a groove out of each edge. Into this groove would be glued a piece of plywood to add strength to the joints. (This sounds easier than it was. It took a lot of testing and fiddling.) These are the smaller sections that go above and below the glass.

Then we glued in the plywood and put the parts together with pipe clamps. More weeks worth of work.

This is a door after it was glued (but not yet trimmed to size).

After this, Brad did a rough trim on the doors and then began hanging them. This involved many rounds of putting them up, trimming them, putting them back up, etc.

When they were finally perfect, I finished them. This involved the same 10 rounds of stain, sealer, and finish that we did on other timbers. There are many other details I’m leaving out like cutting the stop, but you get the idea.

There is one more set of doors to do, but they are already built and assembled so they just need to be hung and finished.

I think I’ll leave the other major feat of the week for another post. Until then.