A. Take a stick. It needs to be...
B. Lay the stick across the two points you want to measure and mark their positions on the stick
C. Lay the stick across the other two points you want to measure. If the marks line up the two distances are equal.
Apologies for the confusion: those pics were taken -before- I started cleaning up the joint surfaces.
But you can see the intricacy of the cope. I did what I could, but mostly the wood is just very much weathered. What would you use to clean such a cope?
Here's 2 pics of the hinge stile put back together after survey cleanup, replacing dowels, and (pipe) clamping. See where the light shines under the rule? That illustrates the warp.
Your candid opinion, kind sir?
Thx, P
"Law Without Equity Is No Law At All. It Is A Form Of Jungle Rule."
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I think the technical verdict is that the wood has turned to crap.
Time to toss the door and buy a new one.
Simple enough.
What if there's tons of stuff in the way of accurately marking? It's like the diagonal on the door is 86 1/8", but there's stuff in the way of marking the (32") width on the stick?
I know, I know. Make a second stick. Eh?
Thx, P
"Law Without Equity Is No Law At All. It Is A Form Of Jungle Rule."
On 7/19/2012 4:21 PM, Puddin' Man wrote: ...
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Have you fitted tight dowels? If the dowels were shrunken or the holes hogged out as we talked before then sure, there's going to be play there.
The last picture shows what appears to perhaps be significant structural damage to the wood itself that has not been apparent in any previous pictures. If that is in fact the case, then either you have to repair it or otherwise work around it...
As pointed out before, you've got to get back to solid material and tight-fits one way or another--I suggested going larger as it's easiest if the wood is basically solid; at least one other suggested regluing in dowels and redrilling them--that _MIGHT_ work but ime generally all you get is the remnants of the that attempted plug spinning in the hole as that thick of a glue line rarely has enough strength to hold.
If it's not solid right around the holes but is elsewhere, there's where I've on occasion gone to replacing the dowels w/ loose tenons but connecting between adjacent holes to house them.
You just have to be creative and deal with what you have and figure out what will work for the particular case.
As for the coping cuts and cleaning them up -- as noted, it's a combination of many tools and patience. I'm lucky in having a fully equipped shop and can find scrapers or make one to fit virtually any cope--lacking that it's more time consuming. Eventually w/ care you can finally sand lightly to smooth things all out again but be careful to not smear the profiles...
But, if there isn't enough solid wood in the stile and bottom rail then w/o the facility to make a replacement fill-in piece or whole new stile or rail (or both) you have come to an impasse. I can't tell from here of course, but that last picture doesn't look good just from the surface and the missing section...that image never showed up before.
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He's described the flat surface technique; see my earlier response upthread from when you first asked on the simpler way to use two for inside measurements like the diagonal or the inside width...surface obstacles aren't, then.
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Pre-hung or not, don't care.
The existing door's wood looks like it's shot. I don't know if it's dry rot or something else but once wood stops being hard and can soak up moisture like a sponge and changes shape, its done.
I know the OP is being stubborn. Good for him, but eventually he's going to have to admit defeat.
Have you already glued stuff together? Are the stile and rail tight together on the other side (they are not on the photo side). If not glued together, you can (should be able to) fix it by clamping to pull the two pieces together; i.e, clamp pad high on the hinge stile, lower on lock stile. It probably got the way it is because you racked it when clamping.
The dowels feel light as a feather. All look badly weathered. Of 10,
7 stayed in the stile (but some may well have shifted), none in rails. They don't really look to be uniform diameter, so I guess they've shrunk.You speak here of the warp.
I had hoped to be able to at least remove the dowels and evaluate whether to drill and use larger dowels or ?, but when I try to ease a dowel out, it splinters. Many rails show more weathering than the stiles. I'm half afraid of doing much of anything with the dowels for fear of making things worse. A couple have already splintered.
I dunno if that's the way to go, here. Drilling into the rails looks problematical.
Wish me luck!
I haven't mangled any, yet ...
I probably should've noticed it and shot some pics before this, but I hoped the cleanup would help and wanted to try that first. I tried gently bending the dowels a little: nothin' shakin'.
Right now, I'm inclined to just clean up a little more, slam it all back together glued, with pony clamps and a couple hardwood boards clamped on each side of the warp (in the pic). I guess it makes sense to clamp the hardwood boards first, then tighten up the pony clamp across the mid-section.
Or maybe add a sizable plate steel reinforcer over the warp (across stile and kickplate rail) on the inside of door , held with deck screws.
Did you say it might make sense to employ a diagonal pony clamp to pull it into square?
You really think Titebond III would hold if I get it all properly clamped? There will be a lot of pressure on the warp joint. How fast does it set up?
Thanks, P
"Law Without Equity Is No Law At All. It Is A Form Of Jungle Rule."
The dowels, like the rest of the door are rotted beyond recovery.
Haven't you dealt with rotted wood before?
Junk the door. It's dead.
On 7/19/2012 10:27 PM, Puddin' Man wrote: ...
Not unless you have well fitting joints, not for any length of time, no. It (and very little else other than some specialty epoxies) is not intended for filling gaps and has little strength as a material itself--it glues by forming bonds across (very) small distances.
It's what I've told you before about the dowels--if they're not solid and into solid wood then the job is to get back to solid material one way or another and fit what is needed to do so.
You've really given no indication of just how bad the material surrounding them is--if it is just crumbly or rotted completely away, your only real choice is to get back to solid material and fill in w/ new or go to some of the restorative products. At that time, given their cost and that this is not a door of any architectural significance you're best recourse may well be to go to the replacement.
Wish could get hands on feel for just how good/bad it is, but one can judge only so much by photos alone, sorry...
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Even if he doesn't junk it, I don't understand the problem with the dowels splintering. If the door is that bad, then you have two choices. Either buy a new door or just tear into the old one, splinters be damned, until you get it apart to where you have sound wood and can see a path to succesfully fixing it. I could do that in an hour.
Of course he's focused on the old door because he claims there is some "problem" with putting hinges on and hanging a new door. And he refuses to consider a pre-hung.
That's what I was wondering too. Is that piece really warped? Or is it how it's joining that's creating a tilt? If it's the latter with maybe some shims put in and correctly clamping it, it would seem to me he could get it back to being straight.
And like you say, hope he hasn't glued it.
But there are other unknowns here too. Like the condtion of the wood in question. Only so much you can tell from pics....
On 7/20/2012 9:56 AM, snipped-for-privacy@optonline.net wrote: ...
The difficulty w/ a prehung in his app is that the RO is also the finished opening so he'd lose at least 2" in width which is probably not desirable.
I do agree it shouldn't be hard to find a replacement...
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No clamps in sight altho he may have used one to pull it in initially.
Pretty clearly imo it's just hanging there because the dowels aren't fully tight in the holes--he's indicated that because of his inexperience in doing such stuff he's been reluctant to just dive in and do a widespread replacement to date so he's just pushed it back together as it came apart without yet doing the rest of the necessary restoration work to get a solid joint.
The worrisome part isn't that it isn't in line at this point (and it isn't a "warp" it's just loose and drooping; if he were to clamp it it would draw up into place against the opposing coping surfaces) it's that there's nothing at the present sufficiently tight to glue together.
On 7/19/2012 10:27 PM, Puddin' Man wrote: ...
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Last point first--what can you make worse? You didn't have a working door; unless you fix it you still don't have a working door... :)
That they tend to come out of the rails and not the stiles is owing to that the in the stile they're along/parallel to the grain; in the rail it's almost entirely end grain. That is much less strong.
Unless the matching hole on the other side for the end that is protruding fits press-tight, you've not got it ready for reassembly yet.
To repeat yet again, you've got to have a snug fit for them to be ready to accept glue and when that happens and they're lined up properly then the rail will go back in place and you won't have any sag. If you note carefully, you'll see there was no glue on the coping joint surfaces--that's end grain on the stiles and wouldn't hold any way so they don't even bother. It's the dowel joints that have to be solid in order to put the thing back together again.
I repeat--until you have those joints tight one way or another there's nothing to be gained by trial assembly other than you can verify you have clean surfaces.
It all hinges on whether you have enough solid material left to be able to do that.
Don't worry about saving the dowels at all -- I generally just saw 'em off unless I'm reusing a particular one and use the dowel jig and drill 'em out. Again, use a pilot bit first to ensure alignment to keep them centered.
Depending on what you have to work with, on something like this if there are multiple identical stiles it can even be worth the time/trouble to make a jig that has the spacings for them already in it rather than doing each one individually.
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I agree with all of the above. Puddin is calling it a warp, but from the pics I agree with your assessment. If we were there, we'd just hold the bottom piece up, see that it isn't warped, just hanging, that it fits, then figure out if there is solid wood there and how to attach it securely, glue and clamp it square.
Methinks y'all tend to get a little off-course. Maybe the following will help.
1.) Nothing has been glued. 2.) The last set of pics were with 1 pony clamp across the mid-section. 3.) The best nutshell description of the wood is "just badly weathered". 4.) The "warp" *appears* to be caused by mis-alignment of the dowels down at the hinge-stile/kickplate rail joint. The stile mates about 1/16" above the rail. 5.) I have no "Magic Wand". I lack both the equipment and skill of dpb.In particular, I have no dowel jig that handles this size dowel. Doubt if I can make/buy one.
I'll see if I can pick up 5/8" dowel and drill bit today. If so, I'll experiment >>...
The replacement is always an (undesirable) option.
I could waste a lot of $ and time ...
You wanna elaborate on that last statement?
Easier said than done.
P"Law Without Equity Is No Law At All. It Is A Form Of Jungle Rule."
Excuse me? Are you saying that a dowel glued into the rail is less strong? If so, I beg to differ.
All I can say to that statement is "Wow!"
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