# Creating a round door jamb



## wombosi (Apr 22, 2008)

nice idea.

i would use something like maple, resawn into 1/4"strips of desired jamb width.

i would make a gluing form out of mdf, based on your RO and diagonals and desired radius. use two nails and a string to lay out the elliptical shape on the MDF that hits your RO points. cut it out with a jigsaw, and belt sand tight to the line.

continue stacking up pieces of MDF and use flush cutting router bit to copy your original. screw together and repeat until the form is as thick as your jamb will be wide. i would make the form extend down to have a square bottom and sides (to give you the correct terminus for the head jamb).

then wrap the pieces of maple (or whatever) around this, roll on the glue (titebond or whatever) and i would use the lightweight ratcheting cargo straps to compress the lams around the form.

it will dry fairly ridgid (hold the shape off the form), but you'll need to add additional blocking at the top of the RO and possibly more on the side to shoot a few more nails/screws into.

then i would spray foam between the RO and jamb to further stabilize.

i think scarfing 12" stock for the casings is the easist way to go. once you have the jamb done you can simply scribe it onto the casing stock with desired reveal.

good luck!


----------



## Willie T (Jan 29, 2009)

I assume you have already Googled "round door". There are a number of Hobbit doors that come up when you employ that search engine. Even more when you go to 'IMAGES'.


----------



## exiledgator (Jan 26, 2011)

Thanks, schmolze. I completely follow what you're saying. It sounds like more work than I was hoping to do, , and a lot of material, but something I feel I can do. I suppose, it's just going to take a lot of work and material. I knew I was setting myself up for a job.  

Thanks, Willie T. Yes, I looked high and low. I did find some pretty amazing round doors that people had done. I really like some of the custom hinges out there. In my searching, I was having trouble locating any techniques for creating the round jamb, however.


----------



## mrgins (Jan 19, 2009)

Make an octagonal post to the dimensions of your finished wall. Cut it to length for each application. Throw it on a lathe (when the glue is COMPLETELY set!) to make it round. Rip it down the middle. Two pieces of rounded jamb! You could also use a belt sander instead of a lathe


----------



## iminaquagmire (Jul 10, 2010)

I'm confused. Are you trying to make a semicircle rough opening and jamb or are you trying to make a finished door jamb for the octagonal opening you have now? Traditionally rounded door openings and arches are made with blocking inside of a skin. So if you wanted a circle shaped rough opening, you'd use two skins of plywood with a circle cut out and blocking placed in between the skins to hold the thickness and provide a nailing surface/plaster surface for the finished jamb. The actual finished jam could be made with layers of bending plywood or 1/8" MDF.


----------



## Leah Frances (Jan 13, 2008)

Once you are done - Pics Pics Pics. PLEASE!


----------



## mrgins (Jan 19, 2009)

iminaquagmire said:


> I'm confused. Are you trying to make a semicircle rough opening and jamb or are you trying to make a finished door jamb for the octagonal opening you have now? Traditionally rounded door openings and arches are made with blocking inside of a skin. So if you wanted a circle shaped rough opening, you'd use two skins of plywood with a circle cut out and blocking placed in between the skins to hold the thickness and provide a nailing surface/plaster surface for the finished jamb. The actual finished jam could be made with layers of bending plywood or 1/8" MDF.


Oops. I'm the one that confused the issue. I think you're on the right track with a circular opening. Right, exiledgator?


----------



## Millertyme (Apr 20, 2010)

iminaquagmire said:


> I'm confused. Are you trying to make a semicircle rough opening and jamb or are you trying to make a finished door jamb for the octagonal opening you have now? Traditionally rounded door openings and arches are made with blocking inside of a skin. So if you wanted a circle shaped rough opening, you'd use two skins of plywood with a circle cut out and blocking placed in between the skins to hold the thickness and provide a nailing surface/plaster surface for the finished jamb. The actual finished jam could be made with layers of bending plywood or 1/8" MDF.


This is the best way, I think. Once you have your circle framed, i would take a piece of finish plywood of choice and kerf the back so it bends. Kerfed plywood bends very easy. The kerfs can be hidden by the casing. the toughest part would be making your opening round. Tough to do now but still possible


----------



## Leah Frances (Jan 13, 2008)

Making the round shape for the opening only requires a piece of string, a nail and a pen.


----------



## Red Squirrel (Jun 29, 2009)

Haha funny the first thing I thought of when I saw this title is hobbit door. I am toying with the idea of making one for my crawlspace or even server room. 

I slightly brainstormed it in my head, and what I think I would do is build a semi round door with planks, or plywood, or w/e. Then find the center, put a stick or something and attach it to a jig saw, then just do a big circle. That would get you a perfectly round circle. Could do a similar process for the jamb, maybe. 

The biggest challenge though, is trying to figure out a hinge system that will be strong enough. You could get some big metal hinges custom made, perhaps from Mordor.


----------



## exiledgator (Jan 26, 2011)

iminaquagmire said:


> I'm confused. Are you trying to make a semicircle rough opening and jamb or are you trying to make a finished door jamb for the octagonal opening you have now? Traditionally rounded door openings and arches are made with blocking inside of a skin. So if you wanted a circle shaped rough opening, you'd use two skins of plywood with a circle cut out and blocking placed in between the skins to hold the thickness and provide a nailing surface/plaster surface for the finished jamb. The actual finished jam could be made with layers of bending plywood or 1/8" MDF.


I'm trying to make a finished circular jamb for the existing RO. Nothing is being painted, so I want to try to make it out of wood, not MDF, though I may be OK with plywood (just an ugly a 3/8" reveal to the casing). 

In hindsight, I suppose I should have framed my RO as the circle. However, this is now what I have. :blush:

I'm leaning towards making the circle jig schmolze suggested, though I may try and bend my laminates into my existing RO first to see how well it takes shape.


----------



## exiledgator (Jan 26, 2011)

Millertyme said:


> This is the best way, I think. Once you have your circle framed, i would take a piece of finish plywood of choice and kerf the back so it bends. Kerfed plywood bends very easy. The kerfs can be hidden by the casing. the toughest part would be making your opening round. Tough to do now but still possible


Interesting. I could still scab in a round RO, though I don't want to lose much in the way of radius. 

If I did a plywood jamb, how tightly spaced would I need to make my kerfs to get a nice uniform bend?


----------



## exiledgator (Jan 26, 2011)

Red Squirrel said:


> Haha funny the first thing I thought of when I saw this title is hobbit door. I am toying with the idea of making one for my crawlspace or even server room.
> 
> I slightly brainstormed it in my head, and what I think I would do is build a semi round door with planks, or plywood, or w/e. Then find the center, put a stick or something and attach it to a jig saw, then just do a big circle. That would get you a perfectly round circle. Could do a similar process for the jamb, maybe.
> 
> The biggest challenge though, is trying to figure out a hinge system that will be strong enough. You could get some big metal hinges custom made, perhaps from Mordor.


As I mentioned, I'm planing on gluing together vmatch. I'll be making a radius out of luan or similar and cutting the circle with my router. sand as needed. 

Here's a heck of a hinge staight from Mt. Doom: link :laughing:

I haven't shopped out my hinges yet, but want something like this:










I framed for it...


----------



## mrgins (Jan 19, 2009)

exiledgator said:


> I'm trying to make a finished circular jamb for the existing RO.


You fooled me. You said round jamb originally instead of circular frame.
Millertyme has it right


----------



## exiledgator (Jan 26, 2011)

Leah asked for pics so I thought I'd oblige - as well as add my humble solution to this encyclopedia we call DIYchatroom. 

I decided to change my RO to a circle (round, whathaveyou) as suggested. I did this by finding my radius:










Then cutting out two circles from a sheet of 1/2" MDF:










After finding the bottom of the circle, I scribed my octagonal RO onto the milled MDF:










Cut and _carefully_ attached new sheething to 1x3 blocks I added to existing octagonal framing. (that wall is 2X3 construction)










Then I ripped, kerfed, and pre shaped/ pre-bent 1/2" AC ply onto the cutouts I had from the MDF RO:










Jamb installed:










I then cut casing out of 1x12. I came up with the keystone idea as I was milling the curved casing. I like the look and it saved my cutting into another 8' 1x12! I distressed the pine casing and will oil it soon:










If I had to do it all over again, I'd definitely make my RO circular from the get-go. I'd also bend maple lams the way scmozle described above. I'm not overly thrilled with the side grain of the AC ply that you can see on the reveal. It's only ~3/16", but it's ugly - and in a few spots, the kerfs are barely visable. The maple lams would have looked much better, but for Joe-DIY, I'm happy with it. 

I still have to install a stop, build a door (out of 2x6 vmatch), and hinge it w/ strap hinges. I haven't decided on a handle, yet.


----------



## Red Squirrel (Jun 29, 2009)

Wow looking good!


----------

