[ENG] Construction 78: Doors of the warehouse (part 1)

As the walls are gradually rising up, the openings of the doors are taking form into the front wall of the warehouse and I can finally proceed with the construction of the wooden shutters.

This is a commercial place, so I'll opt for a basic structure, less refined than the main door: no studs, and iron parts reduced to the minimum.
The threshold is very wide, so a small door for human access will be open into one of the shutters, while the main door will be used to move wares and bigger objects.

Every shutter will be hold in its place by pivots carved into the stiles. The pivots will rotate inside holes (on the floor) or stone rings, without the use of iron hinges.

I drawn inspiration from some drawings taken from the medieval encyclopedia of Viollet-le-Duc, as well as from many pictures found on the web. Sometimes you can still see the stone structure and reconstruct the closing system of the wooden shutters, now lacking.

The pictures to the right show the ruins of the Abbot's Palace in Valldigna's abbey (Spain) and gave me useful tips for the construction of the jambs.
In Genoa is possible to see this kind of structure on the Porta Soprana (literally: upper door, one of the surviving doors of the medieval town), but I think it's a basic element that most of the medieval buildings have in common, aside from specific local features.

As always, the first step is the cutting of planks, partly left over from the construction of the courtyard door.

I smooth out the far ends of both stiles before the final assembly, giving shape to the pivots. Then, with a contact glue, I put together the frame of the shutters paying attention to respect the size of the threshold and verifying the height of the doors on my project sheet.

Lastly, it's time for the exterior planks to be placed, assembling them at a time on both frames to make the horizontal lines correspond to each other. At a later time the outer corner of the shutters will be smoothed out as well to allow the rotation and the opening of the door.

When the boards are finally fixed to the frame, I add two crossbeams and proceed with the assembly of the second door.

The procedure is the same, with the only difference that the frame presents a transom to set the height of the small door in the left shutter. It will move by means of hinges and will be provided with a small peephole door and an iron grid.
These elements are very small and I was not sure to be able to build them, but evidently my previos experiences gave me more self-confidence and I succeeded where a few months ago I'd probably give up.

Now I'd like to place the new-made doors into the Domus, but to do that I'll need to drill the holes into the stone thresholds, something I postponed until today.

But this post is already long enough, so... see you next time!

MATERIALS:

wood, rusty iron wire, contact glue

TOOLS:

tweezers, sandpaper, cutter, files, pincers, hammer and "anvil"

SIZE (in cm):

shutters: height (including pivots) 7,2 (frame only) 6,2; width 2,6; thickness 0,5;

small door: height 3,2; width 1,8; thickness 0,5;

peephole: 0,6 x 0,6