Doormaking Patterns and Ideas Paperback – December 31, 1899

I bought this book as a replacement for another copy that I loaned to someone who "lost" it. It is my go-to reference book whenever I have to build a door around the farm or house -- cabinet doors, shed doors, house doors. Good basic information about techniques, methods & options for building & hanging different styles of home-made doors.

It's difficult to find a book that deals with actually building doors from scratch. This book is very good and covers the material well. The designs included in the book are interesting and give good ideas. I bought another book by this author called Doormaking-A Do-it-yourself guide thinking it would have different information. The books have identical information, just different covers and titles. The publishing dates are different.I would recommend this book for someone who wants to build doors.

Nice

Great book, fast shipping

Older book with b/w pictures (some color at end). Ideas dated- but interesting. Techniques are very good. I have built doors and this book made me think.

What I Wanter !!

John Birchard knows his stuff and has written an excellent, beginners guide to door making with just enough detail to get the job done. However, the text is not complete enough to satisfy an individual with questions that are more advanced or a seasoned wood worker needing information that is more technical. For example, Birchard discusses the expansion and contraction of wood numerous times and how that effects door design and construction, but never elaborates on how to calculate this change for various types or widths of wood. Although, this book contains better content than most other resources out there and while the author does cover most of the information, a person would need to know to literally build their own doors from scratch, it is not done in great detail and in some places is very shallow, such as hardware, which is only briefly discussed.I would have rated this book 5 stars if it was more current and more "polished". At times it feels somewhat out of date and rough, almost like a journal. For example, most of the diagrams and illustrations appeared to be hand drawn.A word of caution, the book by John Birchard called, Doormaking: A Do-It-Yourself Guide, published June 30, 1999 is the exact same book, but with a different cover.

For someone interested in making their own doors this book offers many ideas. For my purposes it is a useful reference.