I’m going to be changing out two closets in an occupied house from double slider doors, to double swing out doors with butt hinges.
When eye balling the doors and cased opening they are placed in, it seems obvious what needs to be done, but I have a question on the degree of bevel I’ll cut on the doors. When I cut the doors down to the proper width to fit correctly in the openings, what degree bevel works best? I’m only going to be leaving a “light” 1/8″ space between the doors so I want to get it right on the first try, and not have to start screwing around AFTER I’ve cut all four doors. DOUGH!!!
These are 1 3/8″ thick doors.
Thanks for any advice.
Cork in Chicago
Replies
SOP is 5 degrees.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations.
What is the width of the doors?
Jon Blakemore
How much do you have to cut off to make the doors fit the opening? Maybe removing the finished jambs would give you the correct size opening.
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell'em "Certainly, I can!" Then get busy and find out how to do it. T. Roosevelt
Do you mean articulated doors (e.g. bifold) or "french" doors ? In any case, for bi-folds you only half the normal bevel on each side of the 'door fold'. as for where the doors meet in the centre, thin doors require a steeper bevel than wide doors (it's because of the radius of the swept arc)
Phill Giles
The Unionville Woodwright
Unionville, Ontario
Narrow doors need a steeper bevel than wide ones. I do 7° on 3-0 doubles. Don't worry, we can fix that later!
Thanks for all the info. So far I have gotten six replies to my original post.
I've done a lot of door work in the past and have a motto I always follow- if in any repeat--ANY doubt whatsoever DO NOT REPEAT DO NOT cut, bore, mortise, or drill a door.
In this case I was just going over in my mind what I was needing to finish up the job and get onto a new one, when I realized I had never actually cut down a 1 3/8" door, never the less done it for a pair of doubles, never the less for two different closets.
These are just sliding doors, on head jamb tracks, with a guide on the bottom. I'll drop the doors, take down the top track, pull up the guide, add a 1by to the bottom of the header (otherwise the doors would hang too high up off of the carpet, each cased opening is about 65 inches wide, so I will cut just a fraction of an inch off each door, bondo the hole from the recessed pull hardware, mortise doors and frames, add stops, add ball catches, hang doors and add half-dummy hardware. Then since the archi won't accept it otherwise I will have to pull the casing and re apply to give an even reveal all the way around the opening (remember the 1by added to header).
Oh Yeah, also before I cut the doors I will drop a plumb bob and make sure everything is plumb square and level, (fat chance), and adjust accordingly. And since this is in an occupied bedroom in an upscale neighborhood, I'll be as quite as a mouse and not make a single speck of dust. (Again --fat chance!!)
Sooo-- to make a long story short-- I figured I would ask some experts before I went and screwed the pooch. Better safe than sorry.
Thanks for the help!
Cork in Chicago
Dang, Cork, leave the poor dog alone!
I'll go with Mike's 3 degrees. You barely need anything and a 1/8" gap between doors is probably even enough for a 1-3/8" x 2-8 door to clear with no bevel at all. You can see what you need by measuring the width of the door and then pulling your tape to the same measurement diagonally across the top or bottom of the door, starting at the front face/hinge side and measuring to the back face/latch side. It's probably so little that a sharp block plane will get it started and a 120 grit sanding belt wrapped around a piece of 1x will finish it.
With an opening of 65" or two 32½" doors minus the proper reveal which is ¼" for double doors, you will probably not have to bevel the doors at all if you maintain a decent space between the doors. People who try to maintain a ridiculously small gap in a hung door are either showing off or have no conception of seasonal movement or the effect of painters on a finished project. I keep the gap on the closing side of a door a loose nickle, which means I can slide a nickle up the the length of a closed door after installation. Don't worry too much about the hinge side, shimming the hinges takes care of that.
Back to the bevel discussion: If you think of the swing of a door in relation to a circle, the smaller the door, the sharper the arc it has to travel. The larger the door the flatter the arc. This means that the leading edge of a 18" door will have to be beveled much more than a 28" door to close properly. When doors begin to get over 32" the arc is so flat, there is little need for a bevel at all.
Personally I don't do the degree thing, I just know how to hold my planer on a given door size. If I was to guess, I would say 3º would be about the proper bevel for a 28" door. I don't bevel 32" doors.
As for cutting the doors for width, try to take a little off both sides of a door rather than alot off one side, this will help the doors resist warping.
Plumb bob? Forget it. You can adjust the plumb with shingles. The difficult part of hanging double doors is getting the hinges on one jamb the same level as the hinges on the other jamb. If you can set that up, hanging doubles is a breeze and your top reveal (the most important) will be as even as the tops of your doors.
I use screws to hang double jambs and get the doors swinging before nailing tight. Occasionally, a slight adjustment in height is needed to make things right.
Thanks Gordsco-
Sounds like good advice. I had to put in steps and other little odds and ends today, but tommorrow morning I'm going to jump on the little pigs and be done with it.
Thanks Again,
Cork in Chicago
I have done/am doing the same. I shimmed my 1 x on the head to give me the reveal on the first one. The next two that I am working on now I had some mdf corner board left overs that worked out fine without shimming. I failed to bevel the first set and wish I had. The old house had by-pass doors on all the closets and I am slowly redoing all of them. I have seen no-mortise hinges used for this (don't cringe).
I bevel 1 - 3/8" doors 1/8" on the lock side, this is 3 degrees on my saw.If you bevel the hinge side (reccomended) 1/16" is fine.The easiest way for you to do this is with a straight edge and saw. I am assuming this is new to you, most carpenters will plane the door. Light sanding with 120 grit paper will remove any saw marks.
You can eliminate the bevel on the hinge side if the door stop is added after the door is hung. You leave a gap about 1/16" between the stop and the door when it is closed.
mike