Timely question - from my point of view at least. I’m also building doors for my house. I’ve studied solid wood doors (both old and new) for some time in preparation for the task, and noticed a few things:
-The laminated core construction was called a “no warp” door. They were far more expensive, and were *not* a cost cutting technique. In fact, the manufacturer lauded their complex construction as a means of minimizing the chance for warped stiles and twist. The technique is used today due to the expense of high quality face lumber, and abundance of automated machinery makes it cheaper than a solid wood door made from first rate materials. But it’s still a good door making technique.
-In the best “no warp” door construction, the strips used to create the lumber core are sawn and glued up so that the grain is aligned vertically (as if it was sawn from quarter sawn stock).
-I’ve not seen a door w/ the laminated construction that has warped or twisted. I have seen a number of solid wood doors with problems. Almost always the problems originate in the long stiles. I believe all of the problem doors did not use radial grain (quarter sawn) stock. So the lesson I learned from observation is that the most important parts of the doors are the stiles, and they should be selected from the best possible stock.
-I have a friend that had a number of doors custom built for his house. The first batch were all made from solid cherry. Most of these doors have warped and twisted a bit. On his second batch, he specified laminated doors, and these have stayed true. When he heard I was making my own doors, he told me about his experience and strongly urged me to go with a laminated core design.
-Surprisingly, I’ve not seen any significant problems w/ the veneer on the laminated doors. They all have used thick veneer though, not the stuff you typically get from the veneer merchants.
-When creating my doors I chose to use the laminated construction technique. My doors are for a Victorian house so I have some large openings to fill. I wanted the ensure stability. I do not trust most of the lumber I can readily purchase at the lumberyard, so I chose to mill the core-stock from old Victorian era beams sold at the salvage yard. This proved inexpensive, and the resulting stock is unbelievably stable. Besides, I’m a cheapskate, and I can call it “green”!
-Another advantage of using the laminated construction technique is it allowed me to resaw all the face veneers from a large, perfect piece of wood. As a result, all the doors will match perfectly. Also, I could use any type of cut for the face veneers though ironically, I ended up choosing simple vertical grain since I plan to veneer the center panels w/ Burl wood.
-The laminated technique is in my opinion very superior, but far more labor intensive. If I planned to paint my doors instead of leaving them natural, I would probably mill the material from old wood oriented for vertical grain for the stiles. This would be very superior to using that flat sawn stock from young trees available at my local lumberyard.
On the topic of how to put the doors together; In my observation dowels and bolts are a hack. These doors do not last; I’ve witnessed them fail first hand. I’ve built doors w/ floating tenons, and true full tenons. The floating tenon method is quite strong, especially if you have three or more rails on the door and double up on the tenons for the large doors. The floating tenons are faster to produce, and will save considerably on lumber costs.
For doors that are mostly glass, I would make them up w/ true full tenons. These are stronger, and I have seen some joint failures on older glass panel doors, even w/ true tenons. So it’s obvious the extra strength is needed on these types of doors.
I hope all this helps!
JB
