I've got a couple of stripped wood doors and a panel in each appears to have shrunk as there is about a 2mm gap along one of the vertical sides. I assume there are grooves that these panels slot into, so the actual shrinkage would be more. Presumably the joints are glued so the door cannot knocked apart. Is there anything that can be done?
David
I have 4 panel Victorian doors which have been stripped and some of the panels have shrunk so they are loose in the door but not so much to cause a real problem as I am putting new inner mouldings in the recesses so any gap will be covered up.
If it had been a problem I would have placed thin MDF pieces in the recesses but I didnt get the doors stripped to stain or varnish them,I did it to get yeras of paint builup off so I could repaint . Sorry i cant be of more help Stuart
I suppose using a moulding would be an option, but the thought of cutting 64 strips of moulding to both sides of 2 doors to make them all the same is a little daunting.
David
2 Doors !!! I have 7 sides to do . .You are right -it IS daunting . Stuart
Paint stripping pine joinery is often very destructive and is best not done. Best left painted as nature intended. However - if the gap is on one edge only it might be possible to move the panel over to close the gap. Sometimes they are so loose that you can move them by hand. If not some ingenuity is called for - start by wacking the door edge on the side of the gaps, or dropping the door sharply edgewise on to a hard floor - they might just shift. If not various arrangements of clamps are possible to get a grip on the panels. If they are not long stripped it might be better to wait until they are thoroughly dried out.. Also they might need freeing if there is paint left in the slots. However you do it the next thing is to give the poor thing a good coat of paint - this is the best thing for all stripped wood items and radically improves the appearance. Stripped pine is even more dreary than the applied hardboard and fablon of the Barry Bucknell era.
cheers Jacob
When I stripped the doors they only appeared to have one coat of paint, so suspect they were stripped wood for most of their life. The panels are fixed so they cannot be moved to fill the gap. Having stripped them, I like the effect so will definitely not be painting them.
David
If the doors are properly made traditional joinery then the panels would have been loose to allow for expansion/contraction without splitting. As they have shrunk away from one side then they must have been a bit loose or they would have split instead. So they might just be stuck - with old paint etc. Might still be worth working on them a bit.
cheers
Jacob
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