stable door question

[johnny]

I have a 50mm hardwood external door for my new shed.
I wish to cut it in half and construct a stable door .

i do not have a router and wondered if anyone had any ideas how I can set up to cut the rebates with a circular saw ?

I was intending to cut the door in half then rebate the two halves to say 20mm overlap and fit some sort of draught strip to the rebate and a drip to cover the joint externally.

 

[Myfordman]

Multiple passes with the circular saw set to half door thickness against a scrap wood fence clamped to the door, introducing ever wider spacers between fence and saw base. Chisel out the waste to the depth lines created by the saw kerf.

 

[johnny]

yes thank you for the suggestion I hadn't thought of that .I can see that that would work but its going to be very time consuming adjusting the guide and making 40+ cuts ! I was hoping that I could rig up something so that I could use the circular saw perpendicular to the door and make just 2x cuts to each door half.
I was wondering if I could bolt a piece of hardwood to the bottom of the saw to form a right angle guide

 

[Silas Gull]

You might want to consider getting the 4 pairs of hinges on and hanging the door before you cut it in half. Save you a lot of bother later on.

 

[johnny]

thanks silas thats a good suggestion.

The door has been hung for over a week now waiting for a break in the weather so I can take it off and do the work on it.

 

[Myfordman]

yes thank you for the suggestion I hadn't thought of that .I can see that that would work but its going to be very time consuming adjusting the guide and making 40+ cuts ! I was hoping that I could rig up something so that I could use the circular saw perpendicular to the door and make just 2x cuts to each door half.
I was wondering if I could bolt a piece of hardwood to the bottom of the saw to form a right angle guide

I think you might have missed my point. about three cuts are all that are needed of each door half and you don't move the fence, just slip in a spacer for each cut.

 

[Graham Orm]

Just cut it in half and fix an overlap on the outside to the top half?

If your door is already cut to length you can't cut an overlap into it. You'll have to add a section to one half after you've routed/cut a rebate.

 

[Zeddedhed]

Just cut it in half and fix an overlap on the outside to the top half?

Just what i was going to say.
Alternatively you could just cut it in half and then fix a 20mm piece (if the door is 40mm thick) to each half to form a proper rebate. Glue, screws and plugs and you'll never know the difference.

 

[johnny]

I think I have devised a solution .
I shall clamp a piece of wood either side of the door. One to support the saw the other to act as a guide :wink:
Then I can simply saw along the bottom of the top half and the top of the bottom half ...simples

I had bought a new stable door 4x weeks ago but it went missing in the post ! :roll:
The seller arranged for a broker to sort the collection and delivery by a courier and somehow they put the wrong address label on the door.

The seller blames the broker the broker blames the courier and the courier says speak to the broker :evil:

What amazes me is the stable door was posted in its 4"x2" frame and threshold how on earth can you lose that ???? It would take 2x men to lift it.

 

[johnny]

yes thank you for the suggestion I hadn't thought of that .I can see that that would work but its going to be very time consuming adjusting the guide and making 40+ cuts ! I was hoping that I could rig up something so that I could use the circular saw perpendicular to the door and make just 2x cuts to each door half.
I was wondering if I could bolt a piece of hardwood to the bottom of the saw to form a right angle guide

I think you might have missed my point. about three cuts are all that are needed of each door half and you don't move the fence, just slip in a spacer for each cut.

I haven't 'missed the point' this is a hardwood door. You are not going to chisel off a 900mm strip 25mm wide and 20mm deep to both doors with a chisel and 3x cuts .

The door is an external door fitted flush with the shed cladding so as to open outwards to maximise internal space. i wanted to cut the rebates not only to form an effective seal against rain but also to facilitate bolting the two door halves to one another so that they can open as one when required .

How would you propose to fix the doors together without a rebate to act as a stop ??

 

[johnny]

Just cut it in half and fix an overlap on the outside to the top half?

If your door is already cut to length you can't cut an overlap into it. You'll have to add a section to one half after you've routed/cut a rebate.

the door has been temporarily fitted to the framed opening without a threshold strip. I did that so that the 25mm I lose when cutting the rebate will be made up when I fit the threshold strip :wink:

 

[Myfordman]

yes thank you for the suggestion I hadn't thought of that .I can see that that would work but its going to be very time consuming adjusting the guide and making 40+ cuts ! I was hoping that I could rig up something so that I could use the circular saw perpendicular to the door and make just 2x cuts to each door half.
I was wondering if I could bolt a piece of hardwood to the bottom of the saw to form a right angle guide

I think you might have missed my point. about three cuts are all that are needed of each door half and you don't move the fence, just slip in a spacer for each cut.

I haven't 'missed the point' this is a hardwood door. You are not going to chisel off a 900mm strip 25mm wide and 20mm deep to both doors with a chisel and 3x cuts .

The door is an external door fitted flush with the shed cladding so as to open outwards to maximise internal space. i wanted to cut the rebates not only to form an effective seal against rain but also to facilitate bolting the two door halves to one another so that they can open as one when required .

How would you propose to fix the doors together without a rebate to act as a stop ??

We would appear to be at cross purposes. The operation I'm describing is to create the very rebates needed for a stop.

Cutting out a 20x 25 rebate across the width of the door with say a 3mm kerf sawblade 20mm deep, 3 passes gets rid of 9mm out of the 25 leaving 14mm in 3 just over 4mm sections. Trivial to chisel out on each half of the door.

 

[Graham Orm]

How would you propose to fix the doors together without a rebate to act as a stop ??

We would appear to be at cross purposes. The operation I'm describing is to create the very rebates needed for a stop.

Cutting out a 20x 25 rebate across the width of the door with say a 3mm kerf sawblade 20mm deep, 3 passes gets rid of 9mm out of the 25 leaving 14mm in 3 just over 4mm sections. Trivial to chisel out on each half of the door.

+1 Or even 4 passes with the saw. 10 minute job if you set it all up properly.

 

[johnny]

my skills with a chisel are ledgendary :lol:

however unfortunately my chisel was last used to shear spot welds on my Transit van wings :roll:

My proposal to use a single pass with the circular saw is considerably quicker more accurate and gives a much neater finish.

Seems to me that you are making this unecessarily hard work just to prove a point :wink: but thank you for your input anyway.

I will post a picture of the guide arrangement (lash up ) that I use when I do the job hopefully some time next week.

 

[dc_ni]

This is the sort of thing they are talking about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNX9Y2cyRhk

 

[Myfordman]

my skills with a chisel are ledgendary :lol:

however unfortunately my chisel was last used to shear spot welds on my Transit van wings :roll:

My proposal to use a single pass with the circular saw is considerably quicker more accurate and gives a much neater finish.

Seems to me that you are making this unecessarily hard work just to prove a point :wink: but thank you for your input anyway.

I will post a picture of the guide arrangement (lash up ) that I use when I do the job hopefully some time next week.

OK to do it with two 90 degree cuts which I think you favour, then having made one cut across each door face, clamp the two halves together to give a bigger surface area for the saw base to run on. This should improve the chances of the cut wandering.

Also maybe checkout the Aldi/lidl specials when they next have a special on chisels - about a £5 for a set of 4?

 

[Graham Orm]

You can take a horse to water..................

 

[dc_ni]

You can take a horse to water..................

... and you can turn him into a Tesco's burger

 

[AndyT]

Johnny I think it would help all round if you could say a bit more about the construction of the door that you have, or better still post a picture of it, as we may all be imagining different things. The only sort of door I can think of that would still hold together in two bits would be the sort of fire door that is pretty much a lump of extra thick plywood. Anything else will have thin parts that will need complicated beefing up when cut across. Even if there is a central lock rail wide enough to cut, you need to think about how much you will be weakening the joints.