I am doing some fixup work on a house and one of the problems was sticky doors. All loaded up with planes and stuff to trim the doorr.
But found that they where metal skin. Basic metal replacement doors, but the #$%*! idots that installed them just screwed the hinges into the edge of the door and did not let them in. Except on one and then they got it off an 1/8″ so the hinge is still high.
I know that the metal is fairly soft, but I dont’ know how to cut hinge gains in it.
Score it with a utility knife and then chop it out with a chisel?
Cut it with a Dremel with the little stand that makes it in to a DW cutter? If so what kind bit.
Router and carbit bit? What diameter I am concerned about catching the metal and tearing it.
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Hey Bill...
Sounds like aluminum (?) I've had good luck doing occasional milling of aluminum with carbide router bits. Fairly low speed and feed rate IIRC.
I think that they are steel.But it is a fairly thin steel, but I don't know how thin. Basic Stanley type of door.I beleive that the cut the bottoms with carbide blades, but that is a chopping action, with small bytes. But cutting for the hinges is working a large area at once with a router bit.
Have you tried a magnet on them? How about a cutoff wheel on a Dremel? Never had to deal with one of these myself...
Bill,
Any of the exterior steel type doors I've seen have the wood stiles exposed on the sides with a 'skin' wrapped around just the edge of the stiles to hold it on the front and back.
Hinges were let into this wood.
There are some hinges made that are "no mortise". Unfortunately, most that I have seen were not very high quality.
If you absolutely must, I would use an angle grinder with a nice thin cut off wheel. I've done some fancy foot work more than once with one of those.
EricIt's Never Too Late
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What You Might Have Been
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Steel doors either have a recess built into them or the hinges surface mount. If they are a fully wrapped flush door they may have nothing but Styrofoam under the skin. You would be better to make some adjustments to the jambs or let the jamb hinges in deeper than to try to cut the steel. The steel door I'm sitting next to has surface mounted hinges and the gains on the jambs are cut almost double deep.
I learned the hard way that there may be zip behind the steel when I was installing some deadlocks. If the steel door isn't set up for gains from the factory you can have trouble. Take out the lock set and see what's back there before you cut.
Beat it to fit / Paint it to match
Bill, this sounds like a commercial door. I see them in condos all the time used for elevator equipment rooms, elev. electrical rooms and storage rooms. Use the Dremel with the small cut off blade. Takes time but works. I've also used a 1/2" diameter stone bit that has a shaft for a drill. It's more tricky but can be done. The stone part is usually about 1" - 1-1/2" long. Finally, a metal cutting blade in a 4" grinder. The small diameter of these blades will allow you to cut about 1" long into the metal, then finish it up with one of the other two options.
Good point, missed that one.
That would be me, cut away the steel to find.............WTF?
EricIt's Never Too Late
To Become
What You Might Have Been
[email protected]
Thanks.I looked at my 25 YO Peachtree and those at Lowes & HD and I am 95% that the ones that I saw are the same. Wood stiles with just steel on the front and back. And the stile are about 1/8" proud so that you can mortise in the hinge.I had just never looked at them that close before and had it in my mined that the stiles where wrapped in steel also.But I know what to look for if they are all metal.
if the stile is 1/8" proud, then why mortise the hinge ?
the door was designed for a surface mount hinge.
plane the hinge side of the door and remount the hinges.
on the surface.
shim as necessary.
carpenter in transition
Two reasons.First there is a large gap on the hinge side.The other reason is that all of the that I have seen, my 25 yo Peachtree, the generics at the HD/Lowes, the Pella/Stanley at the borgs, and the unnamed replacement slabs at HD where all mortised.
I found that I was half right and half wrong. Actually 1/3 and 2/3.The front door is has a steel front panel that wraps around the edges and separate steel inside panel and then filled with foam. On the hing side there what I guess is a heavier guage steel plate rivited in behind each hinge for the screws to screw into.I think that the orginal problem was on the hinge side casing as the there is an extra wide gap on the hinge side at the top. The only hinge with an extra long screw was in the top hinge, the other hinges where missing one screw. But that long screw was stripped and instead of trying to drill it out I attacked the casing on the other side. And was able to remove a shim and adjust the latch side casing.The other two are "conventional" steel doors with front and back steel skins and wood stiles. On both of them the latch side stile is shy of the steel edge, but on the hinge side they appear to be extra proud and the hinges are not set very deep. So I am going to start setting them a little deeper.
Bill
What Eric said.
I have see many metal doors that have wood on the two ends, a lot of them do not have the hinges mortised in. They just screw on.
Doug