Practising hanging a door and doing skirting?

[purpleroad]

Worth getting a cheap chop saw for the skirting? Then some bits of wood (skirting sized stuff) With the skirting practice cutting different internal and external mitres- trying different angles etc..


Getting an old door from the tip then practising on the side door to my garage. Take it off and practice hanging the old door in its place?

Sound like a good idea?

 

[Deleted member 174758]

You only mitre external corners. Dealing with "off-angles" can be a case of eye-balling or of learning how to bisect the angle. Inside corners are (in the main) scribed. You'll need a half decent coping saw and some good blades for that. Just remember that in the real world walls aren't straight, nor plumb, that floors aren't always level and that plasterers tend to leave you with all sorts of issues at the bottoms of walls

Practising on an old door? Maybe it'll work, but you'd need to get something bigger than the existing door - that way you can also practicing shooting the door into the opening as well which is what you'll need to do in the real world

Don't forget that the above actions really do require a good, sharp block plane for fine tuning as well

 

[purpleroad]

You only mitre external corners. Dealing with "off-angles" can be a case of eye-balling or of learning how to bisect the angle. Inside corners are (in the main) scribed. You'll need a half decent coping saw and some good blades for that. Just remember that in the real world walls aren't straight, nor plumb, that floors aren't always level and that plasterers tend to leave you with all sorts of issues at the bottoms of walls

Practising on an old door? Maybe it'll work, but you'd need to get something bigger than the existing door - that way you can also practicing shooting the door into the opening as well which is what you'll need to do in the real world

Don't forget that the above actions really do require a good, sharp block plane for fine tuning as well

What's shooting the door mean?

What do you think of pencilling the old door's shape onto the new door?

 

[Deleted member 174758]

What's shooting the door mean?

Shooting a door in is the process whereby you trim a door down to the required size to get it to fit into the opening and is the first part of getting any new door to fit into an existing opening:

1. Using a framing square check that the head of the casing is square to the hinge leg. If it isn't you'll need to work out by how much it rises or falls across its' width. That must then be transferred to the foor and the top edge of the door adjusted accordingly. Requires a jack plane and a home-made door wedge (or a Workmate if you have one)

2. The length of the hinge side is measured and that length less about 6mm is transferred and marked on the hinge edge of the door

3. The width of the door casing at the top and bottom is transferred onto the new door

4. The door is ripped/planed to width (of the opening) less a couple of millimetres

5. The length of the door on the lock side less 6mm is transferred onto the new door and the bottom is cut to suit (saw, plane, etc)

6. Your door is then offered into the opening. It should be pretty tight, but the door can be packed off at the top and on the lock side using 3mm horseshoe packers and the door can then be pushed up from the bottonm using finely tapered wedges

7. You can now transfer any pecularities of your caseing, e.g bowed legs, etc to the new door and plane them in. You can also adjust the head and sides to fit better. You are aiming for a visually even gap of circa 3mm all round or slightly less when the door is hung so if your door is tight on the hinge edge and you have a consistent gap of about 5mm on the lock side you are getting near.

8. Once you are at that stage the hinge mortise positions can be transferred onto the new door (remembering that you must make provision for a 2 to 3mm gap across the top of the door), the hinge recesses chopped, hinges installed and the door is then hung. You may also need to consider patching the old hinge recesses using softwood "Dutchmen" if the existing hinge recesses in the casing are particularly ropey.

When you are at that stage there will be something to discuss in terms of leading edges, ensuring that the door can open fully, etc. As you plane in the door constantly check that you are keeping the edges square to the face of the door using a try square or combi square. FWIW the above is very much a worst case scenario and it is unlikely that you'll have so many woes in any one door (although it does sometimes happen, especially in really old buildings)

What do you think of pencilling the old door's shape onto the new door?

Hopefully if you've understood the foregoing you'll realise that the approach required is a bit more detailed

 

[HERTS P&D]

It also helps doing a 6 year carpentry & joinery apprenticeship.

Andy

 

[purpleroad]

Shooting a door in is the process whereby you trim a door down to the required size to get it to fit into the opening and is the first part of getting any new door to fit into an existing opening:

1. Using a framing square check that the head of the casing is square to the hinge leg. If it isn't you'll need to work out by how much it rises or falls across its' width. That must then be transferred to the foor and the top edge of the door adjusted accordingly. Requires a jack plane and a home-made door wedge (or a Workmate if you have one)

View attachment 110272

2. The length of the hinge side is measured and that length less about 6mm is transferred and marked on the hinge edge of the door

3. The width of the door casing at the top and bottom is transferred onto the new door

4. The door is ripped/planed to width (of the opening) less a couple of millimetres

5. The length of the door on the lock side less 6mm is transferred onto the new door and the bottom is cut to suit (saw, plane, etc)

6. Your door is then offered into the opening. It should be pretty tight, but the door can be packed off at the top and on the lock side using 3mm horseshoe packers and the door can then be pushed up from the bottonm using finely tapered wedges

7. You can now transfer any pecularities of your caseing, e.g bowed legs, etc to the new door and plane them in. You can also adjust the head and sides to fit better. You are aiming for a visually even gap of circa 3mm all round or slightly less when the door is hung so if your door is tight on the hinge edge and you have a consistent gap of about 5mm on the lock side you are getting near.

8. Once you are at that stage the hinge mortise positions can be transferred onto the new door (remembering that you must make provision for a 2 to 3mm gap across the top of the door), the hinge recesses chopped, hinges installed and the door is then hung. You may also need to consider patching the old hinge recesses using softwood "Dutchmen" if the existing hinge recesses in the casing are particularly ropey.

When you are at that stage there will be something to discuss in terms of leading edges, ensuring that the door can open fully, etc. As you plane in the door constantly check that you are keeping the edges square to the face of the door using a try square or combi square. FWIW the above is very much a worst case scenario and it is unlikely that you'll have so many woes in any one door (although it does sometimes happen, especially in really old buildings)


Hopefully if you've understood the foregoing you'll realise that the approach required is a bit more detailed

Will these do as packers=

http://www.screwfix.com/jsp/trolley/trolleyPage.jsp

 

[Iamchamps]

Don't be put off by what everyone has said I recently replaced 8 internal doors with nothing but average diy skills. They are all straight and look great, people visiting even commented asking who my carpenter was as they look great.

Some doors required planing multiple times a little bit then a little bit more until it was perfect my advice don't be in a rush and you will do fine.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Will these do as packers=
http://www.screwfix.com/jsp/trolley/trolleyPage.jsp

Unfortunately your link is a bit wrong (it points at the trolley page), but if the packers you were referring to were the Broadfix horseshoe packers:

Then you are looking at the right sort of thing. I generally carry a selection of horseshoe packers because they are generally so useful for all kinds of joinery tasks - use the blue packers (2mm) or blue + yellow (3mm). Getting things visually correct is often better than being 100% spot on in accuracy terms, but be careful not to overplave - it's easy to take it off but a lot more diffiult to put it back on!

 

[ladylola]

A lot of the work I did at college was making doors and later in the apprenticeship we got to actually hanging doors. A studded "room" was permanently erected in one workshop and we would fit frames or linings and then the doors. Once hung they were then hung again with the hinges on the former closing side. After that the door was planed on its edges and a lipping glued on thus giving us the chance to practise again and again with the same door.
Practice is always good and more can't really do any harm.

 

[purpleroad]

WHen you plane down the door is it better on two tressels or two workmates? When I did the Diploma Level 2 we clamped the door into two workmates and had it on two pieces of baton on the floor.

 

[ladylola]

There isn't really a right or wrong answer to that one , it's more what you feel comfortable with. I've used the wedge that J&K has shown , I've wedged a door on the sawbench (and much rarely a workmate , simply because they were rare on the sites I worked on) but I have also just pushed a door into the corner of the room or clamped it between my legs. Whatever works for you and you feel comfortable with.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Remember that when you are planing the edge of a door you need to hold the door in an upright position so that you can actually use a plane on the long edge comfortably. If you lay a door flat on top of two trestles you won't be able to plane it accurately or (with a power planer) safely. That's why the "old school" chippies like me tend to make up a clamp from an offcut of 4 x 2 or 3 x 2 softwood. There are lots of alternatives, though. I've seen doors held at one end in a single Workmate, I've seen the sawing stools where one end of the (flat) top board had been notched out like a stirrup to hold a door. What I haven't ever seen on site is anyone using two trestles or Workmates, one at each end. The battens on the floor is a good idea to kep the door off the floor and minimise damage, although with a door wedge like I showed above you'l only need something like a 12in length of skirting or 2x1 PSE as the wedge does the rest. As LadyLola says Workmates are actually quite rare on work sites and always were in my experience - too low,too unstable and not big enough IMHO

 

[Mattatooi]

When I fitted a load of new doors into my house a while ago, I made a couple of very simple jigs which some people call a "Door Buck". It works very well. See here for example -

Essentially you use thin bit of Ply and put some timber either side of it with a gap which is a little bigger than your door width. Then you put some shallow feet on the bottom of it. When you place the door in the gap, the weight of the door will push the flexible ply down and the 2 bits of timber on each side will push against the door making a clamp. Pretty neat and simple solution. Surprisingly very stable.

 

[JohnD]

Remember that when you are planing the edge of a door you need to hold the door in an upright position so that you can actually use a plane on the long edge comfortably.

Do you mean "on its side" rather than "upright?"

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Do you mean "on its side" rather than "upright?"

Yes, not this:

but this:

for planing the long edges of the door. A pair of trestles can be useful if there is a need to saw down the door in length or width, though