Pivot Doors
Oversized entrance leaves that turn on a concealed floor pivot instead of side hinges.
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Bukit Minyak, Pulau Pinang
The door is the first thing anyone touches
We mill solid hardwood doors and frames in Penang - pivot leaves, hand-carved panels, glazed sets, security entrances and routed faces. Drawn with you, cut by people who have done it for twenty years, delivered ready to hang.
- 30 yrs
- Milling hardwood on the same site
- 9
- Door types built to order
- 10-12%
- Kiln-dried moisture, every batch
Who we are
A mill, not a middleman
Ambang started in 1996 as a two-shed sawmill supplying door blanks to joinery shops around Seberang Perai. We got tired of watching good timber leave the yard and come back as a badly hung door, so we built the rest of the workshop ourselves.
Today the timber arrives as sawn boards, goes through our own kilns, and leaves as a finished leaf with its frame, machined for the hardware you chose. Nothing is subcontracted, which is why we can tell you exactly which day your doors were pressed.
Most of our work is residential: architects specifying a house, contractors fitting out a development, and homeowners who walked into the showroom with a photograph of a door they liked.
More about the mill
The range
Nine ways to build a door
Every type below is made in-house, in your dimensions, in the timber you pick. Prices sit where they do because of what goes into the leaf, not because of the label on it.
Carved Doors
Hand-carved relief panels cut by craftsmen who have worked the same motifs for decades.
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Designer Doors
Contemporary leaves built to an architect drawing: inlays, reveals, mixed veneers, concealed hardware.
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Solid Panel Doors
The classic stile-and-rail door in solid hardwood, with raised or flat panels.
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Glass Panel Doors
Timber frames carrying clear, frosted, reeded or laminated glass, glazed at the mill.
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Framed & Ledged Doors
Traditional plank doors with ledges and a brace, for gates, stores and heritage work.
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Router Doors
Machine-grooved faces: rhythmic V-grooves, panels and shadow lines cut on the router table.
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Door Frames
Kiln-dried hardwood frames, architraves and thresholds, machined to the leaf they carry.
Look closer →How an order runs
From your drawing to a hung door
Four stages, roughly six weeks for standard work. You hear from the same person the whole way through.
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Drawing and quote
Send dimensions, a sketch or a photograph. We come back with a costed shop drawing showing leaf, frame, hardware machining and finish, usually within three working days.
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Timber selection
Boards are pulled from the yard for your order, kiln dried to 10-12 per cent and rested. Species and grain are matched across a set so a whole house reads as one.
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Machining and hand work
Cores are pressed, stiles and rails jointed, faces routed or carved. Hardware positions are machined to your template rather than guessed at on site.
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Finish, crate, deliver
Oiled, sealed or supplied raw, then wrapped, cornered and numbered. Our own crews install in Penang and Kedah; elsewhere the set ships with a fitting sheet.
In their words
What clients tell us afterwards
The pivot leaf is 1.4 metres wide and it still closes with one hand. Two monsoons in and it has not moved a millimetre.
We sent a drawing on a Tuesday and had a costed shop drawing back by Friday. That never happens with joinery.
Forty-two doors for a boutique resort, all delivered in one crate run, all numbered by room. The install crew barely needed us.
They talked me out of the more expensive timber because the opening is covered. I did not expect that.
Recent work
Doors we have hung lately
A small selection from the last two years, across houses, restorations and one very long resort corridor.
Hillside bungalow, Tanjung Bungah
A 1.4m chengal pivot entrance with matching internal routed leaves throughout, plus pressure-treated frames on the ground floor.
Boutique resort, Langkawi
Forty-two glazed and solid leaves, numbered by room and delivered in a single consolidated crate run with frame sets.
Shophouse restoration, George Town
Replacement framed and ledged doors copied from photographs of the originals, with blackened iron strap hinges.
Questions
Things people ask before ordering
Yes. We deliver across Peninsular Malaysia weekly and ship to East Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore on consolidated loads. Frame sets and knocked-down bundles also go to distributors further afield. Delivery to Klang Valley addresses is typically five working days after the doors leave the mill.
Usually. Send photographs of the face and edge, a note of the leaf thickness, and the width of any panels or grooves. Where the original is a carved leaf we take a rubbing during a site visit. Matching a stain exactly on a different timber species is the one thing we cannot promise, and we will show you a sample before committing.
Four to six weeks for standard panel doors and frames, five to seven for routed and glazed work, six to eight for pivot leaves, and eight to twelve for hand-carved doors. Lead time runs from approval of the shop drawing, not from the enquiry.
Both. Our own crews install across Penang and Kedah. Elsewhere we supply pre-machined leaves and frames with a fitting sheet, and most contractors handle it comfortably. We will still take the call if something on site does not sit right.
Everything is kiln dried to 10 to 12 per cent before machining and rested in the mill for at least a week after. Ground floor and external frames are pressure-treated. We do not machine timber straight off the yard, regardless of how tight the programme is.
Leaf, frame, architrave, machining for the hardware you specify, finish, packing and delivery to a single address. Ironmongery is quoted separately unless you ask us to supply it, because most clients have already chosen it by then.
Yes. We buy from licensed Peninsular Malaysian mills operating under the national certification scheme, and every intake is logged against its delivery documentation. Chain of custody paperwork accompanies export orders as a matter of course.
Stories
Notes from the workshop
Plain answers to the questions we get asked on site, written by the people who do the work.
Choosing timber for a tropical home
Chengal, Merbau, Nyatoh or an engineered core? The honest answer depends on where the door sits and how much sun it takes.
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Fitting a door frame properly
A leaf that binds in the wet season is almost never the leaf. Here is the sequence our installers follow, in order.
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Caring for hardwood doors
Four small habits that keep a timber door looking like the day it was hung, and one common mistake that ruins a finish.
Read it →Tell us what the opening looks like
Send a photograph, a sketch on the back of an envelope or a full architectural set. You will get a costed shop drawing back, not a brochure.