Repairing old door

16 years ago

Be patient, more information explains the problem better. Interior panel door from the early 1940's. Painted. The shaped molded edges around the panel edges were machined onto the stiles and rails and the panels were inserted during door assembly, no separate moldings involved. Looks as if some force pushed one of the panels hard enough to split part of the molded shape on one of the stiles. The split part was not broken completely off the door, just split part way. The repair technique used prior to my involvement was to nail the split part back in place. Door not painted since then. Nailing was expertly done, but was the wrong technique, in my opinion. I would have made a jig as necessary for clamping and repaired with glue. Removing the split part now would do great damage. But the split would show if the door merely was painted now. So I probably will use urethane glue in the exposed narrow crack and hope it penetrates enough to hold the face edges permanently. Then sand (after glue cure) and paint. Better suggestions?

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Comments (3)

bobismyuncle
16 years ago
Go to your pharmacy and get a syringe (I get mine, 3ml/21 gauge, for a quarter), fill it with yellow or white woodworking glue, inject it and proceed as above. The other technique I use is to put a vacuum cleaner want across from where the glue goes in and sucking in deep into the joint.

I don't know what polyurethane glue is going to do for you that other glues will not.
brickeyee
16 years ago
Unless you fix the underlying problem of a 'stuck' panel it will only crack again, and possibly in another location.

Panel construction is used to allow for wood movement.

If the door was solid wood it would expand and contract with humidity like a single board. This movement will cause problems with locks and simple closing into the jamb.

By using floating panels the door movement with humidity is greatly reduced.
Only the width of the stiles.

The panels are trapped, but NOT fastened in place (sometimes in the middle with a single nail top and bottom to prevent rattles).

Panels often get glued in by paint. Nothing happens when the panel expands in high humidity, but when it tries to shrink in low humidity the panel splits. Sometimes it splits the Âin placeÂ trim pattern at the edge of the panel away from the stile.

There is no simple fix that will allow the wood to expand and contract.
Any fix that further restricts panel movement will result in more (or new) damage.
If you manage to fill the gaps and anchor the panel well enough, the panels can even force the stile to rail joints apart.

Stripping all the paint, possibly taking the door apart to repair the panels, than assembling and finishing again is the only sure fix.

Many painters seem to put a rather heavy coat of paint on the panel-stile joints gluing the panels in place.
This is one place that the thinnest coat of paint that will cover is best.

Painting in the winter when the panels have shrunk as much as possible is also better.

If you paint with the panels expanded they can expand an unpainted line on each stile when they contract in the winter.

New doors should be at below average moisture content and will only expand, but storage often allows them to pick up moisture so shrinkage can occur.
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bus_driver
Original Author
16 years ago
The above is an excellent explanation of the situation that even many furniture designers seem not to understand. But the situation in this case is different. In this case, it appears that an enraged husband body-slammed his wife into the door panel with enough force to split part of the molded edge of the door rail on the opposite side of the door. The panel was not broken. Just speculation on my part about the incident that broke this door as I was not there and have never lived at that address. I want to reattach the split part to the rail from which it was broken, not to the panel to which it was never attached. My purpose is so that the split will not telegraph through new paint. As stated earlier, no paint is in the split part to interfere with glue bond. I plan to go ahead with the urethane glue. Thanks for the posts.

Repairing old door

Comments (3)

bobismyuncle

brickeyee

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Repairing old door

Comments (3)

bobismyuncle

brickeyee

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bus_driver
Original Author