Ledged and braced doors

Ledged and braced doors are usually seen outside the home where their strength provides necessary security on garages, sheds and other outhouses. If constructed carefully and well designed, though, a ledged and braced door can add an interesting and attractive touch inside the home. The basic construction of ledged and braced doors is simple. The face of the door consists of vertical lengths of timber, called battens, which are butted together along their long edges. They are held together by ledges. horizontal pieces which are as long as the door is wide. Most of these doors also have braces, pieces of timber that run diagonally between two ledges. These always run upward from the hinged side; they give added strength to the door. There are many designs for ledged and braced doors.

ledged door

If the door does not have to be particularly strong-for a cupboard, say you can do away with the braces. You can use only two ledges, one near the top and one near the bottom of the door. Another variation is a framed, ledged and braced door. This has stiles and rails jointed together, with the battens glued and pinned into a rebate cut on the inside edges of the stiles and rails. The construction of this type of door is basically the same for making Dutch doors though, of course, the door is not cut in two. Most British doors are 31 mm thick, and if your door frame will only take this size you can build the door to this thickness. Doors on outhouses. however, need to be fairly solid for security, and for one of these you may wish to increase the thickness to 38mm; you can then use 19mm timber for all the pieces, which will be more convenient and less wasteful than using two different thicknesses of wood. The width of the timber depends largely on the design you choose but 100mm is a common size for ledged and braced doors. Doors made from wider boards tend to look heavy and unattractive. Tongued-and-grooved boards are often used for battens. These help to provide a weathertight seal. Square-edged boards can be used but these are not as weatherproof, especially when they shrink and gaps appear between them.

Hanging the door
Ledged and braced doors are hung with tee hinges. The long part of the hinge is screwed to the ledges. If the door is fairly heavy and has been built from thicker timber than that suggested above a heavier type of hinge, known as a Scotch tee hinge, may be necessary. You will also need to fit some kind of lock, bolt or latch to the door so that it closes securely. A barrel bolt is the most commonly used on ledged and braced doors. These are made from iron, brass or bronze, but for purely functional purposes an iron bolt is sufficient.