Stupid Home Project Question............

[FinanceDude]

One of my offsrping decided the pantry door needed to be ripped off the hinges............

So, I ordered a new door, but now I have to drill out the place for the doorknob and latch strike, etc.

Is there a special tool I need to countersink the door edge so the latch cover fits flush?

Other than a lot of planing, I don't see how to do it? There has to be another way............like the special drill bit I bought to make the hole for the knob mechanism to go through...........help

[lets-retire]

The way I replaced my door blanks was to buy a predrilled one off the shelf. I took the old door and new door and lined up the door knob holes and clamped the doors together. I then marked the hinges on the new door in line with the old door and used a router set to the depth of the door hinge and routed out the space for the hinges. With minor shaving the doors went in very easily.

[Telly]

Originally Posted by FinanceDude

.....Is there a special tool I need to countersink the door edge so the latch cover fits flush?

Slide the latch into the edge of the door, and carefully draw it's outline on the door edge with a sharp pencil. Remove latch. Using a utility knife with a new blade, carefully cut into the wood on the pencil line, about 1/8" deep or so, the depth of the latch plate. Then use a sharp chisel and hammer to carefully remove the wood in layers. The main use of the chisel is going to be in-line with the door edge, which is the way the wood's grain runs. Don't undercut the knife line, if you find that the knife line wasn't deep enough, go over it again with the knife where needed. The knife line prevents the wood from splitting beyond the area to be removed.

It's pretty easy, just take your time with the chisel, don't just try to gouge it all out in one pass.

Just in case it isn't obvious... most of the chisel work will be done with the bevel of the chisel down facing the wood to be removed. If you flipped it bevel-up instead, the chisel would drive in deep at an angle!

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Mark it and use a Mototool with a little wood grinding bit. Very quick, very precise, and you can keep tweaking the depth until it fits perfectly.

Or get a new prehung door. It'll take you less time than trying to get a new door to line up, and you'll say a lot fewer naughty words that your offspring will start to repeat... Not really that much more expensive. Take off the old trim, cut through all the nails with a reciprocating saw, pull out the old door, slip in the new one, couple of shims to make it line up, bang in some nails or screws, put the trim back on, transfer the knob from the old door. Done.

[Jane_Doe]

Quick tip that may be helpful:

DH (builder/carpenter for 30 + years) used to take an existing screw hole (empty) and fill it with slivers of wood tapped/shoved into hole (just break off edges) till "filled" hole, then rescrew into hole - allows moving hole over to new spot nearby/off slightly. Try it, it works - esp. good for moving a lock switch plate or hinges.

Jane

Can try to explain better later if this doesn't make sense. Let me know ...

[ERD50]

Originally Posted by Cute Fuzzy Bunny

Or get a new prehung door. It'll take you less time than trying to get a new door to line up....

Agreed. I'm reasonably handy, but the times I've tried chiseling out for the latch plate, I ended up breaking out the wood on one side. There is only ~ 1/8" of wood left on each side ot that plate.

Prehung door means you will spend time removing the trim (on one side only), but nothing about it is as touchy as milling out for that plate. A router does make it easier.

-ERD50

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Originally Posted by Jane_Doe

Quick tip that may be helpful:

DH (builder/carpenter for 30 + years) used to take an existing screw hole (empty) and fill it with slivers of wood tapped/shoved into hole (just break off edges) till "filled" hole, then rescrew into hole - allows moving hole over to new spot nearby/off slightly. Try it, it works - esp. good for moving a lock switch plate or hinges.

Jane

Can try to explain better later if this doesn't make sense. Let me know ...

Thats a good trick and I've used it several times when I've had a door with hinge screws that were spun out or not holding well enough. Also great with entry doors where you want a little more "ooph" for security/kick-in purposes.

You drill a quarter inch hole straight through the screw hole and on in a couple of inches to the studding thats framing the door. Take a quarter inch hardwood dowel, coat it with elmers wood glue and push it through the hole until you hit something or run out of dowel. If you have some dowel sticking out, trim it off flush with the door frame. Wait overnight for the glue to dry and drill with a very small bit to accommodate the hinge screw and reattach with a 2 1/4" deck screw or other hardened screw with the right size head for the hinge.

That suckers in there. Wont move or wiggle out, and if you do this with all the hinge side and latch side screws of an entry door, good luck to anyone trying to kick it open or pry it with a prybar. The hardwood dowels through the framing will hold pretty well, at least well enough for them to decide that its not worth all the time and noise its taking.

[riskadverse]

It doesn't help you now, but pre-hung doors are the way to go in the future. I've replaced 7 doors on my lower level and they have all gone smoothly. It seems like they make the replacement doors and jams about 1/4" smaller overall, so they easily fit into the rough openings. Also the fit is almost always better than replacing just the door.

[ERD50]

Originally Posted by riskaverse

It doesn't help you now, but pre-hung doors are the way to go in the future.
....
It seems like they make the replacement doors and jams about 1/4" smaller overall, so they easily fit into the rough openings.

The 1/4" gap is on all doors, by design. The 'rough opening' is exactly that - rough. It is usually not as plumb/level/square as you need for a door. So you use shims in-between the door and the rough opening to fine tune it.

Then nail through the shims, else you don't get the support you need and you pull the door frame out of whack.

-ERD50

[cute fuzzy bunny]

...and off of ERD's note, dont bother bringing a level with you do do anything with framing. I've yet to see a house thats anything close to level or has square rooms or square door/window frames. Rough it in, get it level by eye against the rest of the crooked stuff, make sure the door swings and start nailing.

My wifes old house made me crazy. Nothing was level or plumb and most of the rooms had walls 1-3" longer than he other walls in the room. Her laundry room was actually slightly trapezoidal.

[TromboneAl]

Two doors in our house would open by themselves if you closed the door almost all the way. They weren't noticeably unlevel, but they would very slowly open up.

Solution was to take out one of the hinge pins, and bang a slight bend into it, then put it back. No problem now.