Customer Reviews

Installing and Hanging Doors (For Pros By Pros)

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This book has the well deserved reputation as being considered the authority on the subject of hanging doors. Written by Gary Katz, recognized as one of the top finish carpenters and teachers in his field, the easy to follow, step by step instructions, covers practically everything from A to Z, that one might run into when working with doors. A "must have" for any finish carpenters library. (It's actually become a cult classic among carpenters.)

Not everyone needs, or wants, to hang a door. But for those who do want to do it themselves, this book is one of the best basic references around. It focuses more on the installation of new doors in new construction, but for those of us who want to replace an old door in an old house there are clear instructions as well.

If this book is for pros, then it shouldn't spend so much time on the basics. But I'm not a pro, so I read that basic stuff several times through. But since I'm not a pro, I also needed this book to be thorough and systematic. It definitely was not. I'm renovating my house, and so am re-hanging about 15 old doors onto new jambs. This is a topic never addressed specifically, but I would have imagined the process to be fairly similar to other jobs. But, to get the process figured out, I had to go back/forth through many chapters to figure out what to do. Difficult topics were mixed indiscriminately with basic topics, and many key pieces were glossed over. The biggest frustration, though, is probably something so simple the "pro" might not even think about. That thin strip of wood that goes around the door jamb to stop the door from swinging past the "closed" position. Well, there is NO mention of these things anywhere in the book. Anywhere, except one diagram where an arrow points to it and labels it a "door stop". There's also never a mention about what size nails are appropriate for building the jamb, for attaching the jamb to the framing, etc. Are long crown staples or finish nails enough? Or should I use framing nails? We amateurs need a decent book that tells us these things. This book helped a lot with a few things, but left me very frustrated with a few more.

Purchased this book to gain some knowledge on how to prep and install wood doors for a house I was refurbishing.
The book proved to give me some knowledge that I did not know, but still allot of details were left out.