How to cut Edwardian door to fit glass panel?

[jgkgolf]

Hi, We've got some original 4 panel doors in our Edwardian house.

In order to get a little more light into our kitchen I'd like to remove the top two wooden panels from a door which leads from our kitchen to our utility area.

I'm not quite sure how to remove the wooden panels as they were fitted when the door was made and are held in place by the thicker boards which make up the remainder of the door.These boards taper inwards to the panels and it is this tapered bit I need to saw to fit the glass and keep in place with putty or some other bits of wood.

I'm assuming I'll have to use a circular saw though I don't actually own one and have never used one. Is this going to be easy to saw or should I be using some other tool.

As I will also have to purchase 2 panes of toughened glass (along with the circular saw (=A320-=A340 ish ?)) it's not going to be a cheap task and I did consider buying a door with glass fitted from wickes/homebase etc which cost =A350ish. However as my door is at least 3 inches shorter and narrower than the standard size I don't think that's feasible.

Any advice?

[dom]

A circular saw will not do the cut you want. It cannot do tight vertical cuts into corners.

I would use a router (and guide) to make neat cuts to form a rebate on the stiles and rails (the thick bits of wood), then a hand chisel to cut the corners square.

(I'm assuming this is a plain 4 panel door with no trims/mouldings and no screws, or nails, apart from the latch and hinges)

To be honest, if you've never used a circular saw, or unless you're very experienced with hand tools for joinery, start with some shelves - not an antique door.

[dingbat]

If you've got nice doors, have a competent trim carpenter do the job. If you're even considering taking a circular saw to them, then certainly have a carpenter do it.

Personally I doubt I'd use a powered saw anyway. I'd probably use a fine hand saw to saw just one half of the beading away from the door, leaving me with a single-sided rebate in the door instead of a double-sided groove, and a piece of matching beading ready-made to hold the glass in place with (I do this quite often installing stained glass). The saw I use is a specially sharpened and re-set English veneer saw, made into a miniature Japanese Azebiki saw (short blade, deep curved belly).

The powered saw to use for this would be a GOOD jigsaw (Blue Bosch, around =A3100). If you want to use a cheap jigsaw, then at least take the door off and work with it well supported on trestles. Good jigsaws have far less vibration than cheap jigsaws and are essential if you want to work on a door that's still vertical and wobbling.

Power tools are far too much trouble for me, so I rarely use them. I'd rather use something that's controllable enough that I can make the minimum cut and not have to do so much making good afterwards. This Changing Rooms slash-and-burn approach is far too much work.

Toughened or laminated glass is cheap, so long as you have a good glazier and don't rush them. These are hard to find these days though (Roman Glass in Bristol / Bath are good)

[Stuart Noble]

All you need do is get the panels out, which is quite easy once you take a section out of the middle of each one with a jigsaw or whatever. The bits above and below that can then be split and slid up/down, and then the two sides moved across and sawn through if necessary. They aren't normally fixed in any way, just slotted into a groove. What you're left with then should be the beading intact on one side, and a square edge on the other. Fill the groove where the panels were and you have a rebate for the glass. All you need then is some quadrant or other moulding to hold the glass in on the plain side. Just done exactly this for a neighbour so let me know if you have queries.

[jgkgolf]

Thanks for the replies so far.

I really like the idea of the Azebiki saw as I'm only doing 8 cuts in total (4 in each panel and having the wood to replace would be better than trying to get a match elsewhere. I've seen them advertised on the internet for =A315 to =A320 with a 100mm blade, eg

it relatively easy to use, I presume I could use another piece of wood as a guide to make sure it's a straight cut or is that not neccessary?

[Stuart Noble]

Is it relatively easy to use, I presume I could use another piece of

As already explained, you don't need to cut *anything* on the door itself, just get the panels out. This job is a lot easier than you're making it :-)

[dingbat]

The Axminster one is too big for this job. I dont get where they think its usable as a "veneer saw"! Excellent saw though -- particularly good at lifting floorboards without cutting too far.

You can get smaller ones from better toolshops, but not easily in the UK --- so I made my own by re-cutting a veneer saw.

[dom]

We don't know if the panels in this door are held in place by stuck moulding (part of the frame) or a planted moulding (tacked/glued to the frame).

It can't necessarily be done by just levering off the moulding on one side.

[dingbat]

Unlikely to be a planted moulding on an old wood-panelled door. They were usually only used on either glazed panels, or sometimes on wood panels in half-glazed doors. If you can put the panels in when you assemble the door (i.e. they're not glass) then it's easier to just cut a groove and do some moulding than it is to fit a bead afterwards.

[Stuart Noble]

Unless it's a very unusual door, all 4 beads are part of it and can't be removed. If you did cut them off with a samurai saw, you'd have to replace them with something similar to hold the glass, so what's the point? The panel is plain and just sits loose behind the beading in a groove but, if the door's painted, you can't always see this clearly. Tap a paint scraper between the panel and the bead to verify.

No, don't go there. Nothing's removable. Trust me on this one :-)

[jgkgolf]

I've had another look at the door and the beading is part of the frame (and part of the t section in the middle). The panel seems fairly stuck in this door but in some of the others it moves about 7.5 mm in both directions and I'm sure it's the same type of door. I can't see how I'd get a glass pane in without cutting beading on one side.

[Stuart Noble]

You put the glass in from the *other* side and it sits against the existing beading. It's held in position by the new beading that you're going to cut and fix to the other side. It'll all be clear when you get the panels out.....

[Stuart Noble]

Sorry, a correction to that. Most of the old doors round here are beaded on one side and plain on the other. If yours has moulding on both sides, you may well need your Japanese saw after all. Take the panels out first and see what has to go.

[Weatherlawyer]

Offer it on eBay and buy a new door to suit.

[jgkgolf]

Hi, sorry for not being clearer in my last posting. The beading is on both sides of the door. The only way to get the wood panel out and the glass pane in is to saw through the beading or else take the door apart as it seems the panel was fitted when the door was made. The latter isn't really an option as it has a solid mortice and tenon joint with wedges(wrong term!) and glue. I've found these veneer saws which should do the trick (I think) , see the veneer or fine inlay saws

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

square inlay edge as possible,once the bulk of the panel is out use a 1/4" chisle to take out 3" to 4" of the wood thats left in the recess of the square and do this the other side as well also do it going with the grain,remove the 3"/4" pieces and the rest will slide out at an angle

[jgkgolf]

Yes, that will get the wood panel out but doesn't explain how I'll replace it with a glass pane.

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

You're going to have to use beading on each side of the panelling,short of taking the door apart which is not practical.

The glass will have to be cut the depth of on one recess of the lower depth and one of the side depths so that you can fit it into the recess and then keep it in place with the beading with additional putty in the recesses to stop any movement although if the beading is tight up against the glass it shouldn't move? but I'd go along with the putty as well for piece of mind. The only way I can see it working.

[dingbat]

A veneer saw has the wrong sort of teeth (although the shape of the blank is good). If you expect to use one for ripping, then you'll need to re-cut the teeth first. This isn't the simplest of tasks! -- but if you find an old '50s woodworking handbook (search for "Charles Hayward" on eBay) then you might get a good hint on doing it.

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

If he can get a larger piece piece of the panelling out then he could use this as the beading, that way its an exact match to the wood. :-)