Wood doors repair

Apr 04, 2011 3 Replies

I belong to a little brick bungalow in a midwest US city, built in 1954, detached frame garage.



Wood doors are all of wood segments commonly joined by woodwork that looks something like tongue-in-groove flooring. Replacing the doors is probably impractical.



On the garage door, some of the tongues are working loose making one end of the door sag. I had to plane the knob end of the door to keep it from scraping the floor. Worked for a while, now it scrapes again.



I have an old reconditioned wood storm door in the back of the house. Twice, a freak wind (50+ mph) ripped the door out of my hand and slammed it against the masonry, breaking the tongue at the top. The first time I reinforced the joint with 1/4" plexiglass plates drilled for heavy wood screws. The second time (today) it broke both plates.



Does anybody know of any tricks/techniques for reinforcing/repairing such doors? If necessary I guess I'll try to find something like aluminum plates maybe 3 x 6 " that I could drill like I did the pglass, but I'd sho'ly, sho'ly like to find something more durable and less work (spec'ing, drilling, etc).



TIA, P



"Law Without Equity Is No Law At All. It Is A Form Of Jungle Rule."



From your description, it sounds as if the doors are constructed of fairly narrow T&G boards without a frame. If so, make it into a "Z" door using wood. Like this (scroll to bottom)...

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As already posted, do the Z-thing, or use some cable with a turnbuckle from the top hinge corner to the bottom opposite corner. That will allow you to adjust the door.

Plexiglas, aka plain old vanilla acrylic, is terrible for such an application. Use the metal corner brackets or straps to reinforce such a joint.

R

True, but it worked OK until a freak 50+mph wind ripped it.

Sorry I neglected to mention both doors have windows, so Z is a no-go.

I'm having trouble finding straps about 3" wide. Seen any?

Thx, P

"Law Without Equity Is No Law At All. It Is A Form Of Jungle Rule."

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