Filling holes in doors after removing Yale surface locks

[Jimk]

He'll be adamant you need bitumen next ;-)

[Graham.]

TNP will be along soon, with some CBF.

[Phil Addison]

I am in a house that had been bedsitter-ized. I've converted it back to a family house and the final job is to take off the Yale surface locks that had been put on 4 of the interior doors. The holes for the barrels appear to have been drilled with one of those spade-type wood bits, so although not bad are not going to be a good fit to a wood plug, and I don't have a lathe too fashion suitable plugs. The holes about 32 mm dia., and are centred 40mm from the edge

I do have a router, and routing out the holes to clean them up seems straight-forward, but that leaves me with the problem of making/obtaining suitable dowels to fill them. Also, using dowels will leave me with end-grain which although not ideal is tolerable if they are to be painted.

Possibly a better option is to convert the round holes to rectangular (possibly routed with rounded corners, or the corners then squared up with a chisel?) and fashion rectangular blocks to suit with the face grain matching the door grain (in direction at least), That would give a future option of stripping the existing door paint and staining instead.

Any ideas on making router templates to (a) clean up the existing holes and produce good fitting dowel plugs? or (b) ditto but with squaring the holes and making matching plugs?

Or should I start with sourcing some slightly oversize 32mm diameter dowel, then router the holes to match?

Phil

[John Rumm]

You can use a router with a template and the right set of bushes[1] to cut a recess in the door, and then an exactly matching plug from some other timber. This will let you route out the imperfection and replace it with a patch made from a suitable (matching) bit of timber. Glue it in place, and sand flush.

(you can leave the lock hole under the patch empty, or fill it before covering with the plate).

[1] Trend do a set - its basically an oval template (however you can use any shape you want), a 20mm guide bush, a 10mm cutter, and a 40mm sleeve that goes over the bush. You fit the bush and the sleeve, clamp the template, and route the surface to cut the pocket. Then remove the sleeve and route with the same template on your donor material just using the bush on its own. The removal of the sleeve changes the offset of the cutter to make perfectly matched parts.

Manual explaining process here:

Axminster sell the collars separately if you already have a suitable guide bush:

[The Natural Philosopher]

if painted, that would be the best plan.:-)

even if not, apply a layer of veneer on top.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Phil Addison expressed precisely :

Could you perhaps fit decorative finger plates instead, over the holes?

[Andy Burns]

[fred]

You might try stuffing the hole with tightly packed newspaper and levelling it flush with a suitable filler.

Or blanking off one side of the hole and injecting some foam filler which could be cut or routered flush after it had expanded. Some spackle should level the surface of the foam

[nightjar]

That was how I cut a plug for a Yale lock hole when I needed to fill it. You still have a small hole in the centre from the pilot drill, but wood filler is fine for that.

[Robert]

On old painted doors I have just roughly filled the hole with a piece(s) of wood glued in with Polyurethane glue which foams, then chiselled excess off, surface filler, sand and paint.

[Bob Eager]

That would have been my suggestion. Gorilla Glue or similar.

[John Rumm]

If you need to use a holesaw without the pilot bit, first drill a hole through a scrap bit of ply in the normal way, then remove the pilot bit, clamp the scrap plywood where you want your real hole, and use it to guide the now "pilotless" hole saw.

[nothanks]

Either use a router jig (as suggested by JR) or just use your chisels to cut a shallow rectangular rebate and inset a piece of matching timber with the grain aligned with that of the door. There's no need to fill the hole. Alternatively, if you don't mind end grain, it's fairly easy to make dowels of any size. For small dowels I would drill a series of (decreasing size) holes in a bit of gash steel, file a notch in the edge of the hole and either hammer or spin (with a drill) through the holes until you reach the size you want. For larger dowels you can either make a simple router jig or use a sharp chisel to make a big pencil sharpener

- loads of examples on t'web. I would just use a sharp chisel to cut a rebate.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Get a suitable sized hole saw, and cut a plug with the grain running in the correct direction? If you have an old floorboard with the same sort of wood as the door, even better. To do so without the pilot drill, best to use a pillar drill. Enlarge the hole so it still doesn't quite fit. Taper your new plug, drench in glue, and hammer into place. Plane and sand flush after the glue dries.

[tabbypurr]

Fit pushplates instead. If the place in ancient, check out a salvage yard.

NT

[Phil Addison]

Thanks John, that looks the business. The Trend oval template is possibly a bit larger than I need so might try to make my own. I can see the oval idea might make for a less visible repair, but do you see any snags with a circular one, just slightly larger than the hole that needs filling?

[Phil Addison]

Nice lateral thinking but I really want a proper job ;)

And there are already nice finger plates, but these locks are 4" above them so would make them unnaturally high.

[Phil Addison]

Good point.

I don't get this, can you clarify? The required dowels are around 32 mm diameter.

[Phil Addison]

I like the floorboard idea. Though not thick enough to reach right through the door, I could use two plugs, one from each side. In fact with the taper idea, it is necessary to do that anyway.

Good point, in conjunction with JR's idea.

You mean make the plug a bit oversize?

Brilliant! Taper it of course. Why didn't I think of that.

Much as I fancy JR's Trend suggestion, as the perfect excuse to learn a new router skill, I'm warming to the hole saw method. I haven't checked yet if there exists a hole saw that just happens to be the right size. If not I suppose I just have to go for an oversize one and fettle the plug tapered down to size?

[Phil Addison]

Finger plates? See comment above.

You mean to buy a new door? I really don't want to do that. Fettling it to fit, painting, cost.