behind door number one

With the saw he sawed logs the right length for a door. He sawed shorter lengths for cross-pieces. Then with the ax he split the logs into slabs, and smoothed them nicely. He laid the long slabs together on the ground and placed the shorter slabs across them. Then with the auger he bored holes through the cross-pieces into the long slabs. Into every hole he drove a wooden peg that fitted tightly. That made the door. - Little House on the Prairie, Chapter 8, "Two Stout Doors"

I've been not working on my log cabin dollhouse lately, but tonight I decided to see if I could make a door for it, following Laura Ingalls Wilder's text in Little House on the Prairie. I'm using apple wood for the cabin, so I decided to use it for the door, too. I haven't a clue if apple is good or bad for this sort of thing. I'm no carpenter, but I have plenty of seasoned apple branches, so apple it is. Nothing has split yet, so that's good.

I cheated and used a table saw to saw the "planks" and I used a drill instead of an auger, and I used wood glue and sandpaper. On the door, you can still see blade marks from the saw, but I like them, so they might not get sanded out.

I'm not quite sure how to peg the leather hinges (I'm going to use pieces from an old belt) to the frame, and since there isn't a frame yet, I've got time to ask about that. I didn't realize until I came upstairs that the Garth Williams illustration shows three cross-pieces, so I may add another one tomorrow.
- posted by pioneergirl at 11:30 PM