What exactly is doorskin?

Question

I've used it in a boat-building workshop, but I'm not clear on what "doorskin" is. Is it just plywood made of a single ply? What is its intended purpose? Is it sold at building supply stores that have plywood?

The one suggestion I've seen for DIY house work is to use it when building a ripping guide for a circular saw. You attach a reliable straightedge (like a factory-edged strip of plywood) to a piece of doorskin, then cut the doorskin with a saw. The reason for using doorskin is that you don't lose much of the cutting depth of the saw blade.

I tried Google, Wikipedia, homedepot.com, and lowes.com, and couldn't find it. Maybe my google-fu is weak today.

Answer 1

I would imagine that it is luan sheets. Luan is used to 'skin' hollow core doors. It can also be used in other applications as a 'skin' when trying to create a light rigid platform with an internal skeleton of framework(much like a hollow core door or assembly table)

Answer 2

You apply a door skin to an interior door that is banged up, but still intact. It is usually 1/8" thick, and comes in 80" a length to match ordinary interior door height. The width is variable, to match your door width (i.e., 32", 36" etc).

1. Get a skin to match the door's dimensions (e.g. 80" x 32"). If the skin is larger than the door, you have to trim off the excess after glueing on the skin, using a router. This is similar to applying plastic laminate to a counter, only it's not plastic, but thin wood.
2. Take the door off its hinges.
3. Take off the door knob.
4. Dry fit the skin onto the door, for proper fit.
5. Apply panelling adhesive to the back of the skin, and place the skin onto the door. Run a wallpaper roller with pressure lengthwise and crosswise over the door, to assure proper adhesion. This works better than contact cement, because you can move the skin around a bit with panelling adhesive.
6. After 24 hours, use a circle cutter to cut a hole on the skin-side to match the original hole in the door. (If the skin was too wide for the door, trim off the excess with a router.)
7. Re-attach the knob, and re-hang the door.
8. If the other side of the door is also banged-up, apply a second skin on that side.

Answer 3

Door skin is also used in theater set building. Framed with 1x3s and braced, it makes a solid, light-weight wall that doesn't have to stand the test of time.

Answer 4

Door skins USED to be Luan plywood, recently I purchased 15 of them from Lowes, sight unseen and had to pay first due to "ordering". My intent was to use them as ceiling panels on my boat. They arrived edges all beat up, were made of press board with a micro thin piece of Luan almost printed on one side, got green and moldy less than one week I stored them in my garage. Be very careful, not what they used to be. They used to be plywood but now they are flimsy press board.