Scratch-built Interior Doors

Disclaimer

I decided that since I require many interior doors and that I'm a relatively cheap SOB I'd rather build them instead of buying them.  The good news is that its easy to make decent-looking interior doors and the better news is that I've got another tutorial for sharing.  As before; I'm working on a PDF of my tutorials and I'll share them once I get the format down.

Interior Doors

In this tutorial I'll be using the template shown at the right to construct a swinging interior door meant for use in 28 MM to 33 MM environments which corresponds roughly from 1:56 to 1:48 scale.  This particular template is for short doors and they stand about 40 mm x 25 mm in size.

Materials and Supplies

You'll need to have a wall made of foamcore, a matt-knife to cut things, some rubber cement, some wood glue, and an awl.  Plus print out the template at full-size; it was designed for 8.5" x 11" Letter but A4 won't cut too much off because the template contains multiple copies of the line art necessary for this tutorial.

I also wanted to have fancy door knobs and so I purchased really small paper fasteners known as "brads". You'll want a metal ruler with metric markings to guide your efforts on measuring and cutting.

Steps

I started with this. Use rubber cement
and glue the template to some
cardboard. Don't make the glue permanent.

I cut out all of the parts for one set.
The swing doors are what I'll want.

Cut out a 40 mm x 25 mm rectangle
into the wall to hold the swing doors.

Use wood glue and set the frames on to
both sides of the wall.  Use your fingers
to ensure they are mounted flush to the hole.

Here's what the fixed door would look
like if affixed to the frame.  It looks nice
and could serve well for most interiors.

Use an awl and scratch the cardboard along the
dotted lines for each of the swing doors.
Peel off the template when done.  Also, cut
a slot into each door at the black rectangles.

Cut out a small piece of paper and glue it
between both doors.  This forms a tab.
The doors are  glued back-to-back.
Line up the slot cuts.

The glue will not spread evenly, so be sure to
place a heavy weight upon them to squeeze
the cardboard together until the glue dries.

Here are those paper fasteners that I use.
I need one for each door knob.

I clipped them a bit to make them shorter
because my doors are sort of thin.

After pushing the brads through each side
this is what my door looks like.

Trim and glue the paper tab between the
frames on to the foamcore.

Here's what it looks like from the back.

The door will swing enough to open
when dry. This is a 40 mm door and
the figure is about 35 mm with base.