Building a Custom Fire Rated Door

Design and Fabrication

In this episode, I built a custom fire-rated door for my Colorado Springs client. Now, to build a custom fire-rated door would be pretty expensive because I would have a ton of hoops to jump through and get the stamp certifying it as fire-rated. So, it is not feasible to do a one-off piece. However, talking with the builder, we came up with the idea to veneer a pre-made fire-rated door to look like the rest of the doors. After a quick consultation with the building department, they approved the door as long as we didn’t cover up the certification stamp on the edge of the door and we couldn’t make any cutouts.

Summary

Woodworking Project: Fire-Rated Door and Challenges

Brian discussed his woodworking project, specifically a fire-rated door for a client’s garage. He detailed the process of shop-sawn veneers, ensuring the material was perfectly square and using a helical head in his planer to clean up the veneer face. He also shared his method of laying out the veneers and the challenges of working with large, heavy pieces. The door was veneered to match the rest of the doors in the house. The rails of the door were a quarter-inch thick and were glued on to create a door stile illusion and accommodate stainless steel thickness. Brian also shared his challenges with using a vacuum bag for epoxy application on a large door project and his plans to find a better solution for future projects.