I’m restoring a bunch of old,5 panel, stile&rail doors in a Victorian home. The doors are of standard mortise and tenon construction. At some point in the past someone sawed an 1 1/2″ off the bottom rails to clear a carpet. We’ve gone back to hardwood floors and now every door in the house shows a huge gap at the bottom. Tried adding thresholds but the gap is still pretty wide.
Will a single wood strip across the bottom of the door hold up long term or will differential expansion between the bottom rail and the side stiles blow it apart? What’s the best way to add a wood strip to the bottom? Glue/no glue? Biscuits/nails? Attach the entire length or just portions? Appreciate any voices of experience out there. I want to do this once and right the first time…
Replies
Painted or stain and clear? Pretty or just functional? How much do you need to add now that thresholds are in?
PJ
Whatever you can do or dream you can,
Begin it
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Goethe
With the thresholds, the gap varies by door (I have about 15 to do) anywhere from an 1 1/4" to 3/4". Doors will be finished with a medium cherry stain and shellacked. I would like to make them look as nice as possible. I realize that a completely invisible repair is virtually impossible given these constraits but it is unlikely that very many people will be crawling around on their hands and knees around the house. If it can look pretty good from 4-5' away and invisible from 10', I'll be satisfied.
BTW, I have at least one door which is completely unsalvageable. I figure I can cut that one up to get wood to match.
Another suggestion-
Make your repairs long and cut the doors after glue up- it'll be faster and easier rather than trying to figure out each gap.
Some good suggestions already so I'm going to throw out a different idea.
Breadboard end across bottom of whole door, Long grain all the way. Could be done with a little v-groove detail at joint. Easier to conceal the inevitable differential movement of the wood. Scrap door, matching wood is good. Biscuits or spline, or machine a tongue and groove. Epoxy or polyurethane. Tone doors with a little color in shellac to hide color variation.
This method would look better if patch size were consistent door to door. I (being anal) might even trim the long doors so they all could accept same size patch.PJ
Whatever you can do or dream you can, Begin it Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Goethe
Faced with a similar dilemma not so long ago, we decided on the result in the attached pic. Somewhat like the suggested V-groove to disguise the seam. Having dealt with this situation numerous times over the years and having tried numerous approaches, I'd suggest considering something like in the pic because it yielded the best-est looking result....me thinks.Grain of added piece runs "the long way" only and the resulting seam was covered with a piece of rope-braid.......with a sloped cut on each end.You would, of course, choose your style of molding according to the architectural style of the house and what you think will look best. Edit: We screwed the pieces to the bottom of the door with slightly over-sized holes to allow for expansion and contraction of the door stiles.
Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.
Edited 12/1/2004 11:19 pm ET by GOLDHILLER
I would try to match the grain direction- keep the stiles running verticle and the rails horizontal with your repair pieces.
Use polyurethane glue- it hold extremely well, even on end grain, and will fill any small gaps.
I wouldn't use nails to attach the strips- you ( or someone else ) might need to cut the doors in the future. Bisquits are fine, but not necessary; just get long clamps to pull everything together. Or, use screws ( or nails ) as temporary clamps, and remove them once the glue is dry.
I've done a few doors like this over the years. You won't get an invisible repair, but with a little care, the patch should be barely noticeble.
If all the doors are the same width, put together a piece of stock with two side stiles and a rail, then rip pieces of it to fit the individual doors. If necessary, trim the door bottom slightly to get a flat, clean surface for gluing. Attach the pieces with biscuits.
for the perfect patch get out the contact cement and the veneer roller... give those old stiles and rails a new live with some nice veneer.... now i know this is a lot of doors to do but afterwards the repair would be VERY hard to detect.
james
Wow! Lots of great ideas here. Going to consider them all...except the veneer. That could be a bit much. Thanks for the help.
MP