replacing Internal door frame

[rubecky]

Hi,

I'm living in an old house and redecorating some of the rooms. In particular most of the internal door frames have lots of big dents and marks on them, and ideally need replacing.

I have looked on a couple of websites and got a vague idea of how to do it. They make it sound quite easy, but can anyone tell me if it is as easy as it sounds - I am a DIY novice - is it something best left to the experts?

If it is easy to do, can you give me any useful tips please?

thanks very much

 

[breezer]

would it not be easier to fill in the dents and clean the marks?

 

[TexMex]

You probably don't need to replace the frames, just the architraving and possibly the jambs.

The frames themselves are made from some pretty substantial timber, about the thickness of the wall. On the face of this you have a frame (a bit like a picture frame but with only 3 sides) made from moulded wood. This is the architrave. You should be able to remove this by levering it away from the frame with a hammer and chissel.

The jamb is just a batten of planed wood that runs around the inside of the frame. It is there to stop the door going straight through the oppening and out the other side. If this is in a bad state, you can also remove this in a similar manner.

Once these have been removed you can apply filler to the worst areas of the frame, sand it down, and replace the architrave and jamb with new timber. The architrave you buy to suit your own taste, and the jamb can be any piece of PAR timber of approximately the right dimentions.

Hope you're handy with a mitre saw.