How To Build A New Door For A Camp Trailer

It wouldn't be the first time; I definitely knew how to build a new door...but experience does not necessarily preclude mistakes. The first attempt had to be abandoned and redone due to grabbing the wrong pieces of wood, for one thing. But motivation? Oh, yeah. Take a look at the old door. Would you want your wife facing the oncoming Arizona monsoon season with a door like that?

With the right boards selected, and with frequent bouts of lifting and carrying the door in progress to check its fit in the doorframe, assembly progressed fairly smoothly. There were glitches. There are always glitches, although perhaps a true master carpenter may not find it so. For my part, I'm neither as comedically inept as Tim The Tool Man Taylor nor as highly skilled as Bob Vila: Every project of mine will hiccup here and there. but a good day is one where the hiccups are mild and minor. This turned out to be a good day.

First, one of the 1/4" plywood door skins, precut to size at Home Depot, was positioned atop a tarp. The tarp is the closest thing on our land to a workshop table or floor, protecting the wood from excessive dust and dirt. Since wind is pervasive in this area, heavy objects were placed at the tarp's corners to keep it from taking flight, and the actual work got underway.

The framing lumber consisted of both 2"x2" and 2"x4" lumber with the idea that the wider piece would help make the hinge side exceptionally strong. Crosspieces were added not only at top and bottom, but also a foot or so apart for the entire length/height of the door. One crosspiece utilized 2"x4" lumber, but that and the hinge side upright were the only such pieces utilized; all the remaining "sticks" were 2"x2" size. Decking screws, size 7 by 1 inch, performed the attaching function, and they were used liberally: Note their regular pattern visible in the middle photo below.

After all framing sticks were attached to one side, the project was turned over and the second skin screwed down tight in identical fashion. To build a new door in most cases, the door skins and interior lumber would have flush edges all the way around. Our RV doesn't work it quite that way. The door actually slips into a metal channel which is screwed onto the door before the entire assembly as screwed onto the hinges. That channel is 3/8" in depth and perfectly fits an edge-on 2"x2" or 2"x4", so a 3/8" edge of 2"x4" needed to stick out from the edges of the door skins so that the whole thing would match up properly with the metal channel.

The completed "raw" door was then set up on leftover 2"x2" lumber to keep it a bit above the tarp for painting. After applying a liberal coat all around the edges with a 3 inch brush, there was nothing to do but wait for the paint to dry a bit. With the hot desert wind blowing, that took less than an hour, after which the door was turned over and the other side painted.

Note: Painting with a roller rather than a brush would have resulted in a smoother, more professional look. A roller would have required more latex enamel paint than I had on hand, however, and it takes more water to clean a roller than it does a brush. Since obtaining water is a process unto itself on our homestead, at least for the moment, the decision to use a brush was an easy one.

On Wednesday morning, Pam was with me when I discovered we had a visitor. I'd been at work on the door for a while at that point. The visitor was one of the most beautifully marked beetles I've ever seen, all red and gold. Pretty sure it had wings that would allow it to fly, too, but mostly it seemed to want to hang out with us for a while. Maybe I can find a few different beetles on the land and get their pictures to flesh out a Beetle Identification Hub. In the meantime, if any of you New Door readers happen to have a clue about our gorgeous and friendly visitor, we'd love to hear it. I can't seem to ID the critter via the Internet, at least not yet, and any help at all would be appreciated.

For the unitiated, a first time dip in the pool of door replacement an be an eye opener. There are more steps to the process than would seem logical for a simple chunk of wood that doesn't do much but swing back and forth and more or less just hang out. Step by step, then:

1. Hit the new door with a second coat of paint.

2. While that is drying, remove the old, ratty wood from the metal channel.

3. Take down the metal channel from the hinges and attach it to the replacement, being careful to position the two items exactly right in relation to each other. If this precision is not accomplished, the new door won't even close; either the top or bottom will hit the frame when you try.

4. Hang the door/channel combo on the hinges. In the camp trailer's case, that means 9 screws, 3 through each of 3 hinges.

5. Attach an outside grab handle, in this case one originally designed to serve as a garage door handle.

6. Using a 1 inch augur bit to accommodate the Brinks deadbolt lock that will do double duty as both lock and latch, drill the "bolt shaft" into the door's leading edge at the proper height. Precision essential.

7. Using a 2 inch bit (for the deadbolt we had on hand) designed for the specific purpose, drill the hole through the door that will accommodate the keylock itself.

8. The leading edge needs to have a bit of wood removed to allow the plate through which the bolt slides back and forth to be slightly recessed, just enough so that the outer surface of the plate is flush with the outside edge of the wood. A wood chisel is the tool of choice, and I own three . Since all remained deep in hiding today, a substitute worked about as well, though more slowly. A screwdriver served as wood chisel, hammered into the wood like any other chisel. Then a (terrifically chipped and dull, though it wouldn't have to be) pocket knife was used to pry out the little chunks of wood. Mission accomplished.

9. The deadbolt assembly then gets fully assembled and (here we go again) screwed down tight. Note: During assembly, it helps to frequently check the deadbolt itself to see that it will still move in and out without binding. A relatively small error in placement of either the bolt hole or the lock hole will pretty much guarantee the bolt will be misaligned and will bind, which is a mess you really don't want to encounter.

10. A 3/4" augur bit is then used to drill a deeper hole into the doorframe to receive the deadbolt. This camper never heard of a deadbolt prior to today. Since I used the opening in the frame's "steel jacket" that used to receive the spring lock bolt, the process was pretty simple, and I used an old fashioned brace and bit for this part--only because the necessary bit already happened to be in the brace. The usual striker plate was not used in this case because when the bolt shot home into the newly augured doorframe hole, it felt right, just like that. Additionally, the steel already in place made it plenty strong enough. Mission accomplished.

The inner screen door also had to be modified to avoid contact with the deadbolt. That involved a bit of work with drill, hacksaw, and bastard file.

Summary: The need to build our own new door for the camp trailer required parts of three days and roughly $40 but was well worth it. We feel much more secure now, and after living with a piece of tattered wafer board for two months, we feel prettier, too.

Thanks for reading,

Ghost32