Straightening a ledge door

[RichardG]

Airing cupboards are always problematic for door movement, even MDF doors bend because of the difference in temperature between the inside and outside of the cupboard. I tend to try and put some kind of vent in airing cupboards and boiler cupboards just to try and even things out a bit. This is mine, the doors have still moved quite a bit.

View attachment 104011


Bolts will hold the doors in the correct position but are a pain if you need to access the cupboard regularly.

Any of the solutions mentioned might work but I do think there is always an element of luck involved with airing cupboard doors, especially using real wood.

They’re very nice doors but wouldn’t match the style of doors in the rest of the house. However it does give me an idea. If I can’t make the current doors work then I could try an MDF base and then glue thin (8mm) matching on the front to give the right look. That composite may be a bit more resilient to twisting?

 

[RichardG]

One unconventional approach worked for me on a similar door. 10 mm steel rod bent to fit 3 sides of a rectangle ie top, hinge edge and bottom of the door. Initially make it flat and fix to the inside of the door using clips, saddles /whatever. Then an incremental adjustment. Remove the rod, heat the middle red hot and set a bit of a twist in it opposed to the twist of the door. Re-fit and see if it's got enough spring to pull the door straight. Repeat until it just flattens the door. A large cupboard door stayed flat for 10 years using that method.

Here we go, I stole one of my wife’s plant holders.

Straightened in out and made a torsion bar.

And then added to the door using metal p-clips.

90 degrees of torsion made no difference so I removed and adjusted so there was 180 degrees of torsion, this has taken out 80% of the twist but I don’t feel comfortable putting any more twist, there’s a fair amount of pressure there!

I’ll give this a few days and see what happens.

 

[Doug71]

Since you are getting creative with the metalwork on the back of the door you could maybe try and make something similar to the Hafele door straightening kit but run it corner to corner instead of straight up and down

 

[thetyreman]

nice solution! reminds me a bit of a truss rod in a guitar.

 

[stevek]

Here we go, I stole one of my wife’s plant holders.
View attachment 104062
Straightened in out and made a torsion bar.

View attachment 104063
And then added to the door using metal p-clips.
View attachment 104064
90 degrees of torsion made no difference so I removed and adjusted so there was 180 degrees of torsion, this has taken out 80% of the twist but I don’t feel comfortable putting any more twist, there’s a fair amount of pressure there!
View attachment 104065
I’ll give this a few days and see what happens.

 

[stevek]

Hi Richard, that looks great and as you said its already had an effect I would give it more time to wait and see how it develops, I suppose there is still the same amount of twisting presure and its sustained so with luck it will continue to force the door over, I suspect you will want to see it twisting past the point where its flat and then try it without the bar?
It looks neat enough though.

 

[RichardG]

To finish off the story. The door didn't improve anymore but was good enough that a good latch would hold the doors shut. Here’s a shot of the final offset with the tension bar fitted, when I took the bar off to finish the door sprung back to the original offset.


To match the existing doors I used Norfolk latches in a slightly unorthodox way but they latch firmly and hold the doors shut.

They will darken a bit in time which will hopefully better match the original Victorian doors in the background.


sorry about the images they‘re the right way round here....

 

[Cabinetman]

Thanks it’s always nice to get feedback, glad the latches worked