Old door repair - advice please.....

[ms2004]

Hi,

In our house we have all the original doors, probably about 1870 or so. Last year we began some redocoration and I wanted to repair the doors. The problem is that the glue has dried out and some of the mortice and tenon joints have come apart.

When I did one of the doors last year a mate suggested an idea. I have no clamps long enough so I brushed glue into the joins, tied some rope along the top/bottom of the doors, threaded a broom handle through it and rotated the handle so it pulled the door together. Afterwards it appeared to have worked, sanded, primed, painted and it looked good. Now, 6 months later the joins have opened up again.

I guess i could prise apart the door and essentially dismantle it but wanted to know if anyone knew of a technique to fix this without taking the door apart.

Thanks in advance.

 

[matz]

if the door has mortice and tenon joints they may be wedged. If the tenons come right through, look for the wedges. If you have them you need to remove them and make slightly bigger ones then joint up again and hammer the bigger wedges in and the frame should stay together due to the wedges, with the glue a bonus. No wedges then you are a bit stuck as the door needs taking apart and cramping properly.

 

[Diver Fred]

A door of that age will be glued together with ‘Scotch’ glue; that 'drys' out over time - i.e. shrinks and hardens. It is still available but I wouldn’t recommend using it without good knowledge. Unfortunately it doesn’t lend itself to being repaired with modern glues so really.



What you could do is to try the following repair, tighten up the joints as you did before, then using a 12mm drill, drill through the side ‘stiles’, centred on the centre line of both the stiles and top, bottom and middle rails of the door. Then knock 1/2in/12mm dowel through the holes, sand off and refinish.



See link for explanation of door parts.

 

[ms2004]

Many thanks for the replies. It is glued, no wedges so I will try your suggestion wgt52, hadnt thought of that. Once again, thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Doggit]

Brushing glue into the joins won't have done a great deal (as you've found) and you really need to dismantle them to get the glue right into the tennons, and the reclamp them. You did a very good trick with the home made truss, but a you could pick up some (3 actually) ratchet straps from the pouns shops to make the job easier next time, and if you want to go belt and braces, then use Wgts dowel trick whilst it's still clamped.