Garage door repair

[s--p--o--n--i--x]

I have a garage door with a wooden frame. It's about 30 years old and the bottom 6" of the frame have rotted at either side.

Is it's quite a major task to replace the frame I wish to do a swift repair, something that'll last for another 5 or 10 years and look cosmetically acceptable.

I thought about removing the bottom portion with a handsaw and fitting a new piece of timber. Unfortunately, there is a metal strip screwed to the back that also supports the door!

Has anyone got any clever ideas for cutting the wood without removing the metal?

I'd thought of simply screwing an 'L' profile metal/plastic extrusion over the top of the rotted portion. Any gotchas with taking this approach?

s

[AlexW]

Not sure if this is useful in your situation...

If you can find a straight path with no screws on the line you want to cut you might be able to take the door off the hinges and use a cicular saw (blade at 90deg & depth carfully set an mm or two above the metal!) with a sawboard as a guide (see

then finish the rest with a floorboard saw or similar.

HTH,

Alex

[s--p--o--n--i--x]

The garage door is similar to the up-and-over one here:

only difference is that I have springs where the picture shows counterweights.

Screwed to the back of the wooden frame (As viewed from the outside) are metal supports for the door itself. These go right down to the floor and also act as a "stop" to prevent the door swinging inwards past the closed position.

This makes it very difficult to remove the bottom few inches of the frame, which has rotted.

s

[AlexW]

I assume that you mean that the frame goes around the timber as shown in the section below (looking top down, timber = #, metal = +).

++++ +++++ +######################################################+ ++++ +++++

Or just up the sides?

+######################################################+ ++++ +++++

If they are on the back only I am not sure why you cannot cut from the front as described earlier and unscrew the screws that need taking out? The idea being that you use the height setting of the circ. saw to avoid hitting the metat supports. See poorly drawn illustration below.

============= ========== ============= #############| |################# #############\ /################# ###############-----################### #######################################

++++ ++++

The saw board (which you need to knock up) is clamped to the face of the door and provides an accurate guide for cutting. The door itself would need to be taken off or secured into a suitable safe working position.

Maybe I have the wrong end of the stick?

Alex

[Rob Morley]

I think it's called a chisel ;^>

[s--p--o--n--i--x]

Each post is like this (Cross sectional view, looking down from the top):

OUTSIDE

## ##+++++++++++ ___________________ _ _ ##+++++++++++ | ##+++++++++++ | DOOR (CLOSED) ##+++++++++++ | ##+++++++++++ |___________________ _ _ ##============= ## ##

INSIDE

Where ## is brickwork, == is metal and ++ is wooden post.

I suppose I could use a chisel but it will be a pig of a job as the post is a little loose and the resulting cut will probably be uneven.

s

[AlexW]

Ahhh ... I was thinking of the timber frame which is part of the door ... clearly had the wrong end of the stick (post) ... sorry.

Would it look naff or effect the workings if the metal bit == was sawn off as well with a guided hacksaw?

Otherwise it looks like drills & chisels.

If you decide to chisel it might be worth doing at 45 degrees from front to back which would probably look a bit neater and make screwing on a new section a little easier. Probably an easier working angle too.

Alex.