Regardless of whether your door is steel, fiberglass, or clad, the components are the same.
- Rails – horizontal members of doors
- Stiles – vertical members of doors (individual stiles and rails can have unique names specific to their location and function)
- Panels – broad inset pieces between stiles and rails. Depending on the tooling used to produce them, panels can be flat, raised, or carved/decorative. Glass can also be substituted in some places in lieu of panels.
- Sticking – small pieces of molding used on the door, particularly around glass and panels. Often, the profile of this sticking is “Ogee” (in the shape of an “S”), but flat sticking, used in Shaker-style doors, has become quite popular.
- Core – Many solid wood doors have finger-jointed cores with a thin veneer applied over the top. The finger-jointed nature of the core gives the door added strength as well as a greater resistance to warping as opposed to solid wood doors. Some wood door manufacturers even incorporate a composite material in the bottom rail to prevent moisture “wicking” up the door stiles.