Customer Reviews

Building Doors & Gates: Instructions, Techniques, and Over 100 Designs

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book starts with a primitive door specification and adds features to end up with some pretty impressive designs. Agreed it is not a "step by step" book that holds your hand through each part of the process.

Through simple line drawings the book shows the joinery required for about 100 different doors and gates. The book does not show you how to build a good joint, look to a basic carpentry book for that information. The book also doesn't give an ordered to-do list for the various designs. But if you have basic carpentry skills you will look at the drawings and say "Ah, that's how it works," and then you will build the door you need.

After reading the previous customer review, I balked on buying this book. I checked it out at the library though, and after reading it, I'm definitely going to buy it. For a pretty competent carpenter/woodworker, the designs are easy to copy, and it does give a fairly good rundown on the joinery needed to build a solid door or gate. If you don't have a lot of carpentry confidence and you need someone to fill in all the blanks, though, it may not be for you.

As a builder and craftsman, this book doesn't really help. It covers some history and tools in the construction of doors but doesn't help with the construction techniques or tools you might need to build a better modern door. I wouldn't have bought this book if I had been able to look at first.

This book is not for the novice craftsman. I have some carpentry experience and I did not find it as useful as I had hoped. The lack of step by step methods for creating the door/gate designs was a negative for me. I also did not like the variety of door designs. However, I did find a couple of very interesting designs that I want to tackle as soon as I find a book that will give me sound guidance.

I bought this book because I need to make a new, exterior door for an old house in my hobby woodshop. Allthough the book has many drawings of more architectural nature, it doesn't really show the technical details for the guy that has to build the door, so to me the book was somewhat disappointing.

I think that the reviews of this book are indicative of a typical problem of books of this type. The publishers take a book on a certain aspect of woodworking and pad it out with a lot of superfluous "basic woodworking" type filler, making it appear to the casual observer as if it is a detailed "how to" book. Buried within this padded and filled book is a good overview of English style gates and doors, with descriptions and general construction notes. So, if that is what you're looking for, you'll like the book. But you do need to have the required carpentry skills before you approach the text. As is so often the case in the woodworking press, the authors were undermined by the clueless publisher.

If you want to learn how to build doors, as the title suggests, do not buy this book. You will be sorely disappointed, and guaranteed that this book will not aid you in building a door. If on the other hand, you are simply looking for some black and white sketches of various types of doors, then this could be the book for you.

A complete waste of money.

Jeff

I have been looking for a source for quite some time for directions for building "board and batten" doors and was glad to finally find this book. Not only did I find the particular door I was looking for but there were lots of illustrations for many different types of doors many of which are historical reproductions.

I highly recommend this book.

Stephanie Lish

If you are a woodworking book collector, like I, buy this book. It has some great ideas with historical data that is very interesting. I've had it for a month or so and it has yet to be shelved. I've used it for a few designs already and will do so for a long time. It's the little things you gain in its detail that are of value. It's well produced drawings show off the internal components of historically crafted doors. I'd buy this book again but if you are seeking a guide to building doors, pass this book by. It is strictly an idea/data guide. Find it cheap, buy it.

Oh I like this book, easy reading and a good resource of information.
If you are a novice, it is good for references but if you are a beginner, it is a wealth of knowledge.
Clear text and comprehensible, plenty of pictures and clear drawings, well put together.
I would highly recommend it to anyone!