I am working on an 1940″ house. It apparently orginally had (still does in two closets) the older style locksets with knobs that threaded onto a square shaft and sperate rosets mounted on the door behind the knobs.
They have been replaced with modern style locksets and the mounting holes hogged out. Looks like it might have used a keyhole saw. The holes are very irregular.
Anyway I want to replace them with the old style. I have rossets that will cover the holes, however there is not enough left to screw into. Since the holes are irregular it will be a pain to plug and patch them.
I am wanter if there is any kind of wood putty, including bondo, that I would build up openings that will hold a wood screw? I think that they are #6 screws and there is really no load on them. Just need to keep the rossets in place.
What I have is not van Dykes, but here is what I am talking about.
http://www.vandykes.com/product/02008006/
http://www.vandykes.com/product/02007946/
And the ones that I hae are 2 1/2″. And the rough holes are about 2 1/4″ so the cover the hole, but not meat for the screws.
Replies
http://www.waterputty.com/view.htm
This stuff is pretty tough. It is very hard to sand, equal to or worse than Durabond. Before it gets set clean up with putty knife to limit sanding rqmts. I is sort of like hydraulic cement for wood.
Instead find some of those screw sets that have an innie and and outie. One male screw and one female. Or find one of the female studs that you can run a screw in to both ends, like a bolt connector.
Edited 2/1/2006 10:40 pm ET by rasconc
Bill,
You can use a mixture of coarse sawdust ( like that found after ripping on the tablesaw, not the finer stuff un the chopsaw bag) and epoxy. The epoxy alone is too hard to easily take screws, so the coarse sawdust allows some bite to occur. The result looks like a tan macaroon.
Bill
Minwax has a two part high performance wood filler its wood bondo pretty much sets real hard and is tough to sand. It comes in a can that looks like a metal butter dish. When I use this stuff I mix up small batches at a time and go a little heavy with the hardner. Overfill the voids just a little. Two hours tops and you can sand it and prime it. Funny thing I have an Uncle whose name is also Bill Hartmann.
Yes I am familar with bondo and I think that the MinWax is the same.But the question is DOES IT HOLD SMALL SCREWS?
Sorry misread your original post missed the part of pumping screws into it. If you predrill the holes probably won't be an issue.
Totally weird, I have a 1945 house with the same treatment! Looks like they used a big blade in a saber saw to enlarge the holes. I used a holesaw with a homemade jig to make round holes in the door. Then I filled them with a blank from a larger holesaw that I chucked in the drill and sanded to a tight fit in the door, glued it in and redrilled to fit the locks.
I would not recommend using filler for screws on a doorknob. You could just glue in some chunks of wood for the screws to bite into.
But the repair does not have to hold the doorknob. That is held by the square shaft through the latch mechanism. The latch does fit solidly.All I need to do is to hold the rossette so that it does not spin around.
I dont believe filler will work long term. There are side forces that will probably loosen the screws. What happens when the handle gets a hard bump? I would at least do what Andy said, embed a dowell in the filler minimum. I'd recommend epoxying a glue blue block in the hole instead. Try the filler, it won't be a big deal to redo, since it will pop out pretty easy.
Mark H and Boss Hog have the right idea. As long as this is paint grade work, the smart way to go is to enlarge the irregular holes to make regular holes, and fill them with wood glued in. That way your results are for sure as good as new.
-- J.S.
I know that glueing in a plug would work.It one of those case of not having enough time to do it right, but enough time to fix it later.The problem with a plug is that I am working with such small clearance to the edge of the rossette so that any plug would be exposed and that would take several cycles of sanding and filling to hide it.What I ended up with is using epoxy with saw dust and made it fairly stiff. Then mixed some more epoxy and use it to wet the wood and embed the mixture.And after about an hour for it to stiffin up a little I primed the door. But the rossetes won't go on for 2 more days after they are painted.
I wouldn't rely on any kind of wood putty for a doorknob repair.
My suggestion would be to square up the hole and put some more wood into it somehow.
I did this one on a door that had been butchered up pretty badly. I cut out a section of the door that was about 6" tall and 5" deep. I glued and screwed in a new block that matched the grain of the door pretty well.
It was a lot of work, but it's held up for about 10 years.
Why not just drill a hole say about 1/4" or whatever and glue in a piece of dowel?
Be wood...I mean well
andy
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We have this situation all the time. Use Bondo (usually in 2 lifts). Sand smooth. Drill appropriate pilot hole. It will hold any screw quite well.
Gotta love Bondo!
F
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Kitty Hair! Kind of like Bondo, but has fiberglass strands mixed in. Would give a little more strength on the threads. Kitty Hair is a brand name, there are others, check out a body shop supply store or boat shop.
PJ
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