I’ve got a bunch of 6 panel pine doors in my 100 year old house. It seems that on quite a few the latch and the strike plate no longer line up. After taking a closer look it seems that in this cold winter when the wood shrinks the panels no longer hold the door together like they used to and the door starts to kind of sag. The latch side drops about 1/4″ and hence the “line up” problem.
Besides waiting until things warm up (which at this point I think may come some time in August!), is there anything I can do to hold the door together better? I hate to try to glue it, not sure were I could inject glue in anyhow!
Thanks,
Greg
Replies
Turnbuckle braces? Attach them to the top and bottom of they door so there are no visible marks when you take them off. Put one on each side so they don't bow the door. Ugly, but they should get you through until you can do a more permanent fix.
Is this the first winter you've noticed the problem? If so, the doors may or may not return to shape. The panels aren't designed to hold the door together; ideally, they 'float' in a groove milled in the rails (horizontal structural members) and stiles (vertical members) to allow for seasonal expansion and contraction. The joints (typically mortise and tenon) between the rails and stiles are glued together, which gives the door its rigidity, strength. If the latch side is sagging, given the house should be well settled after 100 years and you haven't noticed the problem before, and the top hinge screws are tight, then the joints are probably failing. If that's the case, and they were my doors, rather than replaced them with new 6-panels, I might choose to take them down and attempt to rebuild them; see if you can separate rail/stile, glue and reassemble. I guessing they are held together with hide glue, which breaks down with heat. Don't be tempted to nail the panel to the rail/stile to achieve a square door; the panel will eventually split and door sag. I've seen doors 125 years old with split panels because the panels were locked into position by numerous coats of paint.
I've used the turnbuckle approach on a sagging porch door until I was able to return and fix the door; he's right, it's ugly, but it does work, and it will prevent the door from sagging any more.
I never met a tool I didn't like!
Interesting...Sorry to butt in, but that must explain why the paint cracks on the inside edges of the panels. I recently refurbished and painted several 6 panel doors last summer and this winter there are clean lines of unpainted wood where the panels contracted. Will these areas disappear in the warm weather when the wood expands again? Thanks.
They will go away when the wood expands again. When I paint panels (like the frame/panel mantel I built) I try to hit them during the winter if I can't paint the panel before assembly. For now, take an artists paintbrush and the same paint you used before and paint the exposed part of the panel trying not to create a 'seal' between panel and frame. This will disappear in the coming months as the panel expands. Next winter, you shouldn't have the problem again. This problem is worse on unconditioned houses (no humidity control.)
Yes. And will then re-appear next winter. Even if you paint when the panels are at their minimum size, you're likely to see scuff marks where the painted surfaces swell into the grooves in the summer and then shrink back out in the winter.
that, my friends, is part of the charm of real wood doors!
:o)
In this day 'n age we see everything made of plastic (and all made in one piece by a big molding machine) and it is so 'perfect' that it can be jarring to realize just how much variation there was in old, handmade stuff, made from real, natural materials.
What made those old things look so good was that each one was hand fitted to its surroundings. These days a bunch of hacks can throw up a bunch of machine produced plastic and its all (sort of) true and square because it was made that way - keeping it easy for the hacks.
No offense to hacks intended.
Norm
:o0
"No offense to hacks intended."
None taken. ;-)
"None taken. ;-) "
That's because you aren't a real hack!
It takes a special attitude to be a real hack. You need to work around the right kind of people to become a real hack. I don't know what I'm going to do with you! Now don't get your hackles up or it will give one of us indigestion.
Speaking of food, i think I'll go hack a hunk of roast beef off and hunker down with it for a sandwich.
You- go out to the shed and find some firewood to split. That'll get you ready to hack things up.
;).
Excellence is its own reward!
Fine.
I can't do nuthin right, <grumble, grumble>
Probably should go find some old doors, take them apart, and re-glue them...
If they're as old as you say, they probably need disassembled and re-glued. The were probably assembled with hide glue, which doesn't last forever.
I wouldn't try injecting glue in the cracks - Probably won't hold.
Experts say 86% of people who watch pro wrestling on TV think it's real.
This explains why Wile E. Coyote gets so many 'Get Well' cards.
I do this all the time. Sometimes three or four doors a day and sometimes only one. They usually need some painting afterwards though.
I pop it off the hinges and lay it on my sawhorses. If I intend to totally repaint etc, I take the hardware all off.
Then I inspect it all pretty good to assess what is going on with it. Often, as it began to come apart over the years, the painters filled the openning gaps with caulk or filler. I use a tool and scrape that out.
Usually, I can take a beater block of wood with the hammer and knock the joints apart a little more, if they are loose enough to need regluing. That lets me work some Titebond into the crack.
But I don't put the glue in yet. Sometimes the panels are glued tight enough to hold the joints apart where they won't pull together so the old glue near the panel joint needs to be scraped out to let it slide the way it was designed to. The old paint can act as glue to mess the door up. The panels nedc to be floating freely.
Once I am sure taht I can pull it together again, I do the glue work. If only a joint or two need help, I might use a syringe to inject it. More often, I am gluing the whole thing back together so I am using a disposable brush to spread the Titebond into the joints (flip the door over an the benches to get both sides for cleanups and for glueups) Sometimes, for exterior doors, I will be using West System Epoxy instead of the Franklin Titebond. Then I reach for my door clamps and some bruise blocks ( scrap of wood the thickness of the door and at least six inches long so the force of the clamp doesn't crsh the wood fibres of the door) to pull it back together. A wet rag to clean up the excess glue squeezing out and wait a couple hours for it to kick.
Now, some Homeowners don't have a pile of long clamps so you can build a glueup table. Take a sheet of plywood and lay it across the sawhorses. Lay a sheet of plastic to it so your dorr doesn't stick to it.
Screw some blocks to it a little farther apart than shown in the diagram, and cut yourself some shims to drive in to push the door joints together..
Excellence is its own reward!
Piffin,
Thanks for the advice, and thanks to eveyone else as well. Long clamps I got. If I get some time next week I may try to glue up one of my doors. None of the doors with the problem are painted. Poly-U (or whatever they used way back when, probably shellac I suspect) on wood only. Believe it or not the doors made it 100 years without anyone taking a brush to them.
-- Greg
The poly can do the same thing with acting like a glue when it collectrs in those joints.
I have seen doors that old with little done to them too, but I'll bet that they had some shellac a time or two and possibly some wax over the years..
Excellence is its own reward!
You didn't say if they were painted or not. If they are then remove the door and lay it flat. Use the turnbuckle technique to make the door square again. Drill a hole into the side of the door through to the cross member (stile?) like you would for a pocket screw. Put a long pocket screw in. It will draw the pieces together and hold them square. Fill the holes and repaint ot touch up. It may work to only put the screws on the hinge side if you do not want to see the holes on the open side or if the doors are unpainted.
Good Luck