Filling holes in doors after removing Yale surface locks

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You'll be limited by the size of holesaw you can find. And make a trial one - don't rely on measurements.

It only makes sense once you've done one. ;-)

If you're going to buy a hole saw, find one as close as you can - but remember the plug won't be the same size as the cutter says. Hence doing a trial one. You can buy proper cutters designed to make plugs of a certain size - but one that size if you could find one - pricey.

If you sand both the door and the donor plank, you can likely find a reasonable match grain wise - if you're lucky. I had a couple of doors I wanted to leave as oiled wood and spent some time patching them. Great fun if you have the time - like we all probably have now. And mixing stain to get the colour as near right as possible. Not an invisible repair, but looks good and tells the history in an old house.

[tabbypurr]

No, plates, which you don't want. You'd get a lot further if you told us whether the doors are wood, mdf or eggbox, painted or varnished

NT

[spuorgelgoog]

If you have a router you could make nice really long wood finger plates that would go up most of the stile of the door - then mount your decorative plates over those at the usual height.

Even make 4 plates for each side of the door - hinge and latch side, top and bottom - and they will look like fancy mouldings if stained/painted to match the door.

Owain

[nothanks]

The search string isn't difficult, "making large dowels" should work. Square or octagonal stock fed through a hole in a block that has a router bit running inside (perpendicular to stock and offset) and an exit hole the desired size - turn stock whilst feeding in. Requires rough sums to start with and then some trial and error but makes reasonable dowels, any size you want. You could probably do something similar on a saw table but I haven't tried.

[Phil Addison]

I have no idea what you mean by 'plates', push or otherwise, but I'm sure you're right that I don't want them.

Wake-up at the back!! Check 'blocks to suit with the face grain matching the door grain', 'a future option of stripping the existing door paint'?

[Phil Addison]

OK, got it thanks. Copying the search results url isn't difficult either.

interesting vids, e.g. the 1st one Phil

[John Rumm]

Yup you can make any size / shape template you like so long as it has no radius that is smaller than that of your largest guide bush.

That's fine. The attraction of a non round one is making the lines less easy to see. This matters not much on a painted door, but if trying to do a near invisible repair on a polished hardwood it can make more of adifference.

In reality if you already have a guide bush, then you can make the rest. Pick a cutter, and then make a ring of wood (or whatever) to go round it, and sand it down[1] so that the offset it introduces is exactly twice the diameter of the chosen cutter. Make a template and sand/file smooth on the internal edges.

[1] To sand something circular to an exact diameter with perfect centering of the hole, I would take a scrap of ply/mdf and double sided tape the router bush to it nearish the edge. Drill a hole though the add on bush, and fettle until its a nice snug fit on the bush. Then you can offer the whole thing up to a rotating disc sander (or any other type really), and spin it round the bush to sand the outer edge. Better to under rather than over do, you can always take more off.

[Andy Burns]

Better looking results with a chisel, rather than a router?

[John Rumm]

Check out some of Izzy Swan's crazy table saw jigs. e.g:

(same idea can be done with a router table as well)

or bowling balls:

:-)

[John Rumm]

The circle sanding technique I described elsewhere in the thread can do tapered circles if you tilt the plane of the sanding bed when taking it to the sander.

[nothanks]

[williamwright]

SIMPLE:

Bill

[tabbypurr]

That doesn't tell us whether the wood is wood or veneered eggbox. Sigh.

NT

[rmlaws54]

32mm diameter wood 'plugs/disks' are easy to obtain. they have a chamber on one face to help you push them in.

Robert

[Phil Addison]

It's advisable to read the whole question before engaging both feet...

"The holes for the barrels appear to have been drilled with one of those spade-type wood bits". Can you advise the best way to use those in egg-boxes?

"routing out the holes to clean them up seems straight-forward". Do you know of a special kind of router for veneered egg boxes?

Phil

[Phil Addison]

Interesting. Thanks for that.

Phil

[Phil Addison]

Interesting. Thanks for that. I Googled "32mm diameter wood 'plugs/disks'" and it would seem I'm not alone with this task!!

Phil