No laughing...making good hinges and latches advice

[Mattnew2002]

Hi all. Looking for some tips.

I'm replacing hinges, latches, and handles on 14 existing painted doors (including cupboard doors). I think it's fair to say I've found something I'm not particularly good at (or patient enough?). A couple of photos attached. No laughing.

My question is this - how can I get the crisp look around the hinges that I would expect to see on a new door. Old timber/paint/different sizes of old and new fittings/poor skills mean I always end up with a bit of a mess around the new fittings. Is there a way to tidy these up that doesn't look too rough? All I can think of is filling in the gaps with caulk or filler and overpainting.

I'm aware that best practice would be to cut out the area, glue in a new plug of timber and recut the rebates from fresh timber, but I'm hoping there's an acceptable halfway house to make it look "good enough".

Any advice or tips greatly welcomed. Next time I'm buying a flat without any doors.

 

[Diver Fred]

Before you remove the existing door furniture go round the edges of metalwork with very sharp knife.
When you buy replacement door furniture you can be limited to buy the same make.

I'm your case do think your idea of filler rather than caulk is the way to go.

 

[Mattnew2002]

Thanks Diver good advice. I do do these things, but it often doesn't make a great deal of difference if there are multiple coats of paint over and around the hinges, plus exact replacements are rarely available for older propeties.

Re. the filler, any tips? I'm thinking of putting masking tape over the new hinges themselves and then trying to get the filler as "perfect" as possible so I don't have to do any sanding which would risk scratching the new hinges. Not sure it will work great though. Repainting around the hinges/latches etc will also be hard to do neatly.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Masking tape is fine to use when filling against though you'll have to go easy to avoid going through the masking tape so maybe you want to consider something tougher than masking tape. Two part filler from Ronseal or similar would be good, consider temporarily removing the ironmongery when you come to paint, instantly removes that fiddly process.

 

[Mattnew2002]

Thanks fmt - I'm thinking maybe a couple of layers of masking tape then sanding very carefully if I have to sand. Duct tape might work but might leave a mess on my polished chrome hinges.

I might just use white fine wood filler (I like the ronseal two part - does it dry bright white?) and see how perfect I can get it in one hit. The ronseal isn't water based though so I can't use spit to "mould" it in quite the same way as I could a standard water based filler.

I've been buying some cheap everbuild stuff (including filler, but also glues and some other bits) and I must admit the quality has actually been pretty good, especially given the low price.

Any advice still welcome!