Making a Narrow Door (WARNING: Bodge Job)

[AlwaysLearning]

In my hamfisted way, I want to "make" a door to suit a room. My hair brained scheme is to take a perfectly reasonable 4 panel pine door, slice the middle out, join the parts together with worktop bolts, and pass it off a as 2 panel door.

becomes

Working in my favour are: it's only really visible from one side, it will be painted, it won't be in a particularly well lit area. Perhaps not in my favour is that it will be opened and closed several times a week.

Broadly, would my idea work?

 

[dzj]

Nope.
The rails would have no structural strength.
Perhaps if you glue on extra rails from the inside...

 

[Doug71]

You can buy 4 panel pine doors in 21", 24", 27", can none of these be made to fit?

If you want to alter a door as you said it would be better knocking one stile off and reducing the length off one end of the top, lock and bottom rail, removing the upright rail and cutting then rejoining the panels to the width you need. Then just put a couple of large dowels in each joint, good as new.

Doug

 

[ColeyS1]

Sounds like a bodge job so bodge a piece of plywood on the back to give it some strength. Glue and screw the ply on.

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

 

[deema]

It would be far quicker, more rewarding and a far better job just to make a 2 panel door.

However, if you buy a really cheap solid pine door that uses dowels instead of mortise and tenon joints, then you could do as you suggest and rather than work top bolts simply use dowels to reattach the style back on. If you buy a door that uses tenons there will be no meat in the rails to recreate the tenons and I wouldn’t want to trust dowels into the tenons left in the styles.

 

[AlwaysLearning]

You can buy 4 panel pine doors in 21", 24", 27", can none of these be made to fit?

The manufacturer don't make 21" 2 panel doors in that style. Some others do but the dimensions of their rails and stiles aren't close to a match

If you want to alter a door as you said it would be better knocking one stile off and reducing the length off one end of the top, lock and bottom rail, removing the upright rail and cutting then rejoining the panels to the width you need. Then just put a couple of large dowels in each joint, good as new.

I did contemplate doing this too but I thought I might struggle to take things apart. The rails and stiles seem to be blocks finger jointed together. I doubt I could knock off a stile without damaging it, and making an accurate cut to remove it might be challenging. Then I get to remove two panels, hack out the central stiles, accurately cut the panel edges to remove the beveled edges such that the new straight edges butt neatly, then accurately cut the edge and the rails in such a way that I can refit the stile. Given I have hobbiest tools, I doubt my skills are up to it unless I buy a couple more doors to experiment with.

So, hence I came up with "cut the middle out". I hadn't really appreciated the problems with stopping it from flexing.

I did think about dowels but shied away from it when I thought about trying to get them in deep enough and lined up perfectly - a skill I admire in others. Hence worktop bolts for the initial joint since I think they would be more forgiving with the initial line up, then recess a couple of steel bars in the top and bottom surfaces, and ply on the back.

Sorry, I can almost hear some of you sobbing at my ineptitude but if I'm going to bodge it, I'd better make a proper bodge of it! But rest assured, in the utopian world my mind wants to live in, I will have used my almost limitless leisure time to do the job properly and gained the self satisfaction of creating a thing of beauty.

 

[nev]

*Bodge*
Saw the two stiles off, using a new hand saw or a circular saw running along a batten guide to help with accuracy.
Cut the top bottom and middle rails to the full width of the new required door.
Divide the thickness of the stiles/ rails into three approximately.
Cut new tenons on the ends of the rails and new mortices in the stiles.
Make some new panels from suitable thickness ply or by joining your existing ones (at/near the scallop?)
Put it together.

http://www.idostuff.co.uk/sections/DIY/ ... enons.html

https://www.wonkeedonkeetools.co.uk/woo ... od-chisel/

*end bodge*

 

[Doug71]

These things generally knock apart easier then you think.

Cut through the top and bottom rail 10mm away from the stile and the door will practically fall apart, you can then easily remove 2 panels. Cut through the upright mid rails close to the top, bot and lock rails and again remove them easily. Going on your plans you have to join the panels again so that is no different.

You will need to cut a bit of a joint on the end of the rails but a masons type mitre will sort that out.

Cramp it together and just drill through the outside of the stile in to the rails and hammer through some long dowels or even some coach screws to hold it together.

You are right, I am sobbing at the thought of what you are proposing , drop it in my workshop, won't take an hour, FOC.

Doug

 

[AlwaysLearning]

These things generally knock apart easier then you think.

Cut through the top and bottom rail 10mm away from the stile and the door will practically fall apart, you can then easily remove 2 panels. Cut through the upright mid rails close to the top, bot and lock rails and again remove them easily. Going on your plans you have to join the panels again so that is no different.

Well I think I might give it a go since you've made it sound easy.

You will need to cut a bit of a joint on the end of the rails but a masons type mitre will sort that out.

Cramp it together and just drill through the outside of the stile in to the rails and hammer through some long dowels or even some coach screws to hold it together./quote]

Is the masons mitre strictly necessary if long dowels are used? I'm not sure what purpose the mitre would serve.

You are right, I am sobbing at the thought of what you are proposing , drop it in my workshop, won't take an hour, FOC.

Thanks for the offer. If I were closer, I'd take you up on that though I'd feel obliged to bring Jaffa Cafes and a stopwatch.

 

[Blockplane]

Plain ply or emjeff faced flush door and glue thin strips and panels to the display surface to create a panelled effect.

 

[MattRoberts]

Emjeff?!

 

[LBCarpentry]

Thats so crazy that.........it might just work!

 

[pollys13]

Dowels, biscuits, or splined, loose tenons?