Shoji Sliding Door Construction
A shōji is a door window or room divider used in traditional japanese architecture consisting of translucent sheets on a lattice frame.
Shoji sliding door construction. Our screens and doors are hand built using the finest woods and papers available. To construct this tracking system from scratch you will have to etch a 1 16 inch groove into the lower. Shoji usually slide but may occasionally be hung or hinged especially in more rustic styles. In many cases it consists of 4 doors that slide in a bottom rail at the floor and a top rail.
Figure out how large you want your wood frame to be. All wood species will vary somewhat in grain and color. Shoji panels are made of wooden frames with translucent white paper glued to a lattice structure. To make 2 sliding doors with overlap of one edge find the centerline of your opening and draw a line.
See our installations for examples. Shōji are very lightweight so they are easily slid aside or taken off their tracks and stored in a closet opening the room to other rooms or the outside. So what is a shoji and how is it constructed. Shoji sliding door panels are attached using a shikii floor rail and a kamoi overhead beam.
Cut two sheets of purebond pre finished plywood to size with an extra in each direction. Where light transmission is not needed the similar but opaque fusuma is used. Above the top rail a non movable blending completes the project. I used poplar wood because it is lightweight and more importantly cheap.
We decided to use the purebond for our shoji door to the bathroom too faster than using wood framing pieces and going with a hardware free sliding door would mean more durability overall. Interior walls of houses constructed with shoji doors can be removed from their tracks to expand the rooms for parties. Wood samples below shown next to ebony door pulls for color comparison. I just used the width that the wood comes in for the bottom and i cut it in half for the vertical frame pieces.
Here s how the door was built. Traditional shoji are handmade by craftsmen called tategu ya. A shoji is the japanese word for a paper wall or door. If playback doesn t begin shortly try restarting your device.
An error occurred. Shoji is a style of japanese sliding door. While many of the shoji doors in this project had different over all dimensions the joinery dimensions were all similar the main differences being piece total length and spacing of the kumiko mortises in the rails and stiles. Cedar can be used for outdoor applications as well.
Shoji hawaii has created a lovely collection of traditional and custom shoji screens doors and room dividers. Building the shoji doors here follows a detailed description of the process i used to make a set of shoji doors.