I’m a remodeler, so even though I do hang doors, its not something I do every day, or even every week. I just finished hanging a new 1 3/4 solid core exterior door in an old jamb, and I wanted to vent my frustration, and get some feedback on what I’m doing wrong.
First off, let me say the good part: the door turned out great, closes snug, even reveal, customer is very happy, t&m job (actually, an extra).
Now the frustrations: The new door was oversize width-wise by a quarter inch, and I don’t have a good method for cutting a door to size. I used my worm-drive with a straight edge guide, set my blade with a slight bevel, and followed up with a Bosch planer, then belt sander, then palm sander. When I made the initial cut with the circular saw, the blade tended to wander just a bit, no matter how hard I tried to keep it tight to the straight edge guide (a super straight jamb leg that I clamped on).
It felt like more work than necessary, and when it was finished, I had over-compensated by about a sixteenth, which in terms of door reveal, is a lot. Plus, the sawblade blew out a small piece of veneer (those stain-grade doors don’t have much thickness to the veneer, do they!). Had to shim the hinges with some old business cards to tighten up the reveal on the latch side. Which worked fine, and now the door looks real good, but I hate having to go back and monkey with hinges that I just motised myself. Also, I find it real difficult to get a nice straight even cut with my planer, even though it has an edge guide to help steady it.
Then the hinges: I use a dedicated Bosch palm router, and while my work looks good, I never feel like I get the mortise depth just exactly on the money – seems like the depth adjustment is just not precision enough. I use a Templaco hinge template, which has little nails that hold it in place. Works, but feels primitive to me. Is there a better system?
For the lockset I have a Templaco drilling jig, which works great, no problems there.
CaliforniaRemodelingContractor.com
Replies
I'm not a fan of worm drive saws for doing finish work. Their one big virtue is power/torque which isn't what's needed when trying to make a precise cut.
I use either my Milwaukee sidewinder with the wide sole plate or my Porter-Cable with the same feature. They also have a front depth adjustment which allows the sole plate to slide up and down without changing it's angle. So your hand/wrist stay at the same comfortable angle, making it much easier to guide the saw and/or hold it against the straight edge.
BTW, I fully understand your frustration with all the problems you ran into today with that door. Sounds like you did a good job of making it fit.
I remember my first renovation job, where I had to make up custom jambs, then fit the doors to them. It was a great learning experience, even though I was almost constantly frustrated by the seriously out-of-whack openings.
Edited 3/22/2008 4:27 am by Hudson Valley Carpenter
Ditto ditching the worm drive for such work.
My saw's are all Porter Cable but Dewalt makes a nice sidewinder if you have the patience to keep it adjusted and square.
Also, solid core doors are often filled with, well junk! Sawdust and glue and whatever else can be pumped into it. I once cut a solidcore door and hit a flooring nail.
I use masking tape to tape off the entire surface that the saw shoe will touch. Use a fine, new sharp blade.
Take a small cut but big enough that the blade will not be tempted to walk out on the edge of the door. Slow, smooth and pressured against the guide.
Unless I have a significant run out? A good palm sander with fresh paper is fine to finish up. Depending on your approach, the planer can have a tendency to pull long strips of the veneer off as well.
I prefer to route hinges freehand with a laminate trimmer. That will go against what others may tell you, but for the occasional one off job? I've been able to use my laminate trimmer and a straigh bit to do the hinges as well as most of the lookset mortises.
I have to cut a lot of doors down to fit into some of these old New England openings (last year one was shaped like a parallogram) and have found the best method is using the Festool saw and guide system. The saw can be set for 2-3 degrees and leaves an almost flawless finish that only requires touchup sanding, if that.
I don't use a jig when cutting hinge mortises in a slab for old jambs. I scribe the mortise locations on the slab, use a chisel to mark the edges, then use a dedicated trimmer (MAkita due to the light and clear base) to machine the mortise. It's done freehand. A chisel cleans it up.
I have several mortising jigs, but I've never been happy with the results. Operator error, I'm sure.
"I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul." Invictus, by Henley.
Total number of door hung by me. Zero. So take that into account :)
Get the Festool or EZSmart guide rail and I think you'll have resolved your biggest hurdle. For 1 3/4" you should be ok with either one. If you're cutting 2" doors you'd probably want the bigger Festool model. For bevels, you might find that the Festool is a better setup for that, though either will work.
Someone here at BT talked me into the EZ and I've been amazed at how well it cuts. You need to take 1/32 off a door? No problem whatsoever. Perfectly straight, paper thin rips. And dead smooth. No chipping, tearing out, or rough surface left behind.
Have you cut a 1 3/4" door with the EZ guide? One of the drawbacks, I thought? to the EZ was it could not cut much more than an 1 1/2". To cut 1 3/4" an 8 1/4" saw was needed. To use a 7 1/4" saw the saw would ride up next to the guide not travel on top of it to cut an 1 3/4". If you can make the cut what saw/setup are you using?Thanks for any insight you have on this. Currently debating the EZ system vs Festool.
Edited 3/23/2008 11:20 pm ET by Newpoint
I need to cut some subfloor with the EZ tomorrow. I'll take a measurement and let you know.I've got it set up with a Milwaukee tilt lock. Can't recall exactly what depth it goes to. But I have seen a way to pare down the depth limit and make some more room.I send some notes tomorrow.'Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt man doing it' ~ Chinese proverb
I don't have a saw guide (yet) which I think would be the most appropriate but from my current aresenal I'd just used a plane for a 1/4". Either hand plane or power plane. Call me old fashioned... or slow.
I think the advice here is good. I also think your first sentence is key to the problems. You certainly have the knowhow but practice works out the kinks is all.
HUck,
Well you used the wrong tool. If you would have used one of those portable power planes that door would have been done in a fraction of the time it took you (without the issue of blowout. I have a small 3 1/4 inch wide Mikita that works great, was modestly priced and if you go to the factory store near you that does tool repair they are sure to have that sort of thing priced much lower than you can buy them on line or at a discount store.. Grizzly sells one for $43.95, Dewalt's is $150.00 and I suspect most of the rest are around that $150.00 price..
I'm very happy with the Grizzly tools and equipment I've bought thus far and the idea of saving over $100.00 would quickly make up my mind..
Once you own one, you won't believe how many uses you find for it..
As for hinge depth My standard solution for too deep a cut is cardboard. cut one the size of the opening glue or staple it in place so it doesn't fall out while you wrestle with the door hinges and screws and once you screw on the door hinge it becomes invisable.
Edited 3/22/2008 8:45 am ET by frenchy
It sounds like you did pretty well considering that this isn't your forte', and your tool choices (a wormdrive!!?? - lol) weren't optimum.
Fitting a new door to an existing jambset is something of an art form. It usually involves quite a bit of "fit and fiddle" work and no two jobs are the same. I usually avoid fitting a new door to an existing jambset by pointing out that the potential labor cost can quickly exceed the cost of getting a prehung door and replacing the whole thing.
When getting a prehung just isn't in the cards, I take the old door to the door shop and have them do as much of the work as possible. They have ALL of the right toys and can do the work much faster than I can in the field. Most of the time, the new door pops right in with little (or no) "tweaking".
Glad you vented Huck. Sounds like we were working on similar projects on opposite ends of the country. (Virginia) We experienced all the same fustrations you did using similar tools and methods to hang a door on an old school built in 1923. Ours turned out great as well, and was a great learning experience but took a LONG time compared to the prehungs we normally use.
I hear there is a much better system out there but the cost is prohibitive unless you have a lot of doors to hang.
I know this doesn't help you the next time you have a similar project, but thought you may like to know your not alone in your fustrations.
Ridge
huck,
Thanks for the short rant. I can now proceed with the once a month similar projects without being so frustrated with my percieved lack of skill.
We do some insurance slab replacements and I think for the situation of one or two doors, Porter-cable has two jigs that are inexpensive and effective.
The plastic adjustable hinge jig covers a wide range of uses including both 3/8 and 5/8 radius hinges, as well as, 2 1/2 to 4 1/2 (?) in size.
They also make a latch template which I will be purchasing soon as I am frustrated with the limited ability of the Templaco product.
Once again, the remodeler has to encounter a range of frustration far exceeding that of the new construction installer. I have to remind myself of this occasionally when I tend to doubt my speed and efficiency.
I'da used my little power planer to shave an 8th off each side.
I have very litle experience with a worm drive ... but have cut many the door in length and width with my DeWalt Circ saw. I have the one with the rear pivot ... makes for very nice finish carpentry cuts.
for finish grade veneers ...set the straight edge ... set the blade to a short 8th ... even a 16th is good ...... pull it backwards to score ... set the blade to full depth ... push it forwards.
done.
Jeff
Buck Construction
Artistry In Carpentry
Pittsburgh Pa