Replacing A Door

[Bob Haskett]

I bought a new door for the back patio. The hinge locations on the door do not match the hinges on the frame. The door is steel. What is the best way to go about hanging that door to the original frame? Chisel out new hinge locations on the frame would be difficult I would guess. However, chiseling out new hinge spots on a steel door is not practical, so what is the best way to do this?

Thanks

[Myk Rian]

I just replaced 5 doors in the house, but they were prehung.
It wouldn't be a hard job to make a new jamb, but if not that, then chisel out new hinge locations. Then you have a few old ones to fill in.

[Neal Clayton]

agree, the right way would be to pull the frame and just make a new one.

once you get the trim off you just run a sawzall behind the frame in front of the shims to cut the nails, it'll come right out.

then make a new frame the same dimensions as the old.

[Steven Green]

Pull the door and hinges out, then put dutchmen in to repair the old mortises. Plane then sand them to match the frame. Then it's an easy task to cut in the new hinges. I was the door carpenter for a couple of companies and did this very thing a whole bunch of times.

[Chip Lindley]

Short of building a new jamb, Steven has your answer. If the jamb is painted, even better! After repainting, nobody will ever notice. I would only build a new jamb, if trying to match stained hardwood where the old hinge locations would be most noticable.

[Peter Quinn]

I'm with Stephen. Leave the jamb in place, patch the old hinge mortises with dutchman, assuming it is paint grade. I haven't seen many stain grade steel door jambs. Then make a hinge template using a 4" rip of 1/2" mdf to match the hinge locations on the door, and transfer these to the jamb. I assmume your threshold gasket system is compatible?

If not, return the door, get a prehung, and replace the whole unit might actually be easier.

[Ben Franz]

Bosch (among others) makes a template kit that allows you to use a router to cut the new hinge mortises on the existing jamb in place. The kit can be set up to match all three hinge positions at once to the new door layout. You might look for one of these at a good rental yard. Just a suggestion.

[David DeCristoforo]

Bondo, baby! Forget the "dutchman"... Fill the old mortices with Bondo, sand, cut new hinge mortices then repaint the jamb. Quick, easy, down and dirty.

[Lex Boegen]

Bondo, baby! Forget the "dutchman"... Fill the old mortices with Bondo, sand, cut new hinge mortices then repaint the jamb. Quick, easy, down and dirty.

Bondo gets my vote too. It sticks to anything and doesn't shrink or crack and takes paint great.

You can temporarily shim the door into the opening until you get the correct gaps around the top and edges of the door, then mark the location of the hinges on the jamb. Remove the door and put one of the hinge leafs on the door jamb on your marks and scribe around it to mark the area to be mortised. If you have a laminate trimmer, you can put in a straight cutter and set its depth to the thickness of one of the hinge leafs, then route out the bulk of the waste in the mortise, then finish by hand with a chisel. Of course, you can do it by hand with a chisel too--it just takes a little longer. For one door, I don't bother with hinge templates. I just rough it out with a router like I described above. I can finish a door faster than I can setup the template.

[Henry Ambrose]

No Bondo! Its made to stick to metal, not wood. The repair might last, it might not.

Glue in your dutchmen with an epoxy resin that is made for wood. West System is excellent. Paint the mortises with unthickened resin then add a little sawdust to your mix to thicken it to about peanut butter consistency. Spread that, pop the patch in place and gently wipe off most of the squeeze out. Sand and paint.

[David DeCristoforo]

"...Bondo! Its made to stick to metal, not wood..."

Something is telling me not to get into this but, for some perverse reason, I'm not listening. Bondo sticks much better to wood (esp. wood that's a bit rough like you would find under a hinge) than to metal. Have you ever seen body shops Bondo a dent? They never just put the Bondo on. First they have to perforate the area so that the Bondo will ooze through and "lock" to the metal. Otherwise it's likely to fall off. Bondo is the best filler ever made for wood (even though it wasn't made for wood) as long as it's going to be painted or veneered. I suppose I should say that this is "just my opinion"...

[Glen Butler]

Bondo gets my vote too. It works great on wood. Buying a prehung door or at least re-hanging the door is always ideal because each door slab is shaped differently i.e. twist and bow. Exterior doors are much more forgiving however.

[Mark Major]

"...Bondo! Its made to stick to metal, not wood..."

Something is telling me not to get into this but, for some perverse reason, I'm not listening. Bondo sticks much better to wood (esp. wood that's a bit rough like you would find under a hinge) than to metal. Have you ever seen body shops Bondo a dent? They never just put the Bondo on. First they have to perforate the area so that the Bondo will ooze through and "lock" to the metal. Otherwise it's likely to fall off. Bondo is the best filler ever made for wood (even though it wasn't made for wood) as long as it's going to be painted or veneered. I suppose I should say that this is "just my opinion"...

I'm definitely with David on this one. I've used bondo for this type of repair and for rotted portions of jambs for about 30 yrs and have never seen it fail. But, like David, this is also just my opinion. Mark

[Doug Carpenter]

I agree with the bondo. I added bondo to a shotgun stock to adjust the fit. I shot it for years before I made a new stock.

I would fill the hinge mortises and then install the door with out mortising new ones first. Since the jamb wasn't made for that door it may not need to be mortised. That way you can be sure you don't get too much gap between the door and the jamb on the strike side. Chances are good that you will need to mortise anyway but you havent created more work for yourself if you don't need to mortise them.

If you find you must mortise then you can just remove the pins and trace around each hinge with your utility knife. Then you remove the hinge chisel what you need to and reinstall the hinge.

In this case a router and template are more troublr than it is worth. You can be done before you would even have the router set up. Plus you will create less of a mess inside your house.

I have a bosch hinge mortising kit and I only use it when I am doing more tahn one door because it takes a while to set up.

Good luck!

[Bill Pitz]

No Bondo! Its made to stick to metal, not wood. The repair might last, it might not.

Glue in your dutchmen with an epoxy resin that is made for wood.

Epoxy is complete overkill for this job. It will work, of course, as will good old yellow glue. Titebond 3 if the hinges are outside the weatherstripping, which they're probably not.Yellow (or white, for that matter) glue, properly used, is considerably stronger than the wood that it is used to join. Epoxy can actually be less strong, although it does offer structural gap-filling advantages. Given the projected loading and intended use profile of the patched hinge mortises, you're probably perfectly safe using yellow glue. If you're going to mix epoxy, why not just mix bondo and skip cutting the dutchmen?

[Henry Ambrose]

First, nothing I write here should be taken as any kind of personal attack - its just about which kind of "stickem" is best for this job. That said......

I guess I'm the guy who came behind all those half-way Bondo repairs and had to fix them. I've seen the results first hand. Its a good stop gap but its not something you can be proud of. Why not use a better material?

Epoxy resin made for wood will penetrate into the wood and make a patch that may be harder and tougher than the original. I say "may" because some thought and care is needed to get that result. Bondo does not penetrate. Sooner or later the Bondo patch will fail. There is no need to drill a bunch of holes or chisel out notches for epoxy to key into. You're not going to have to depend on mechanical fit to make an epoxy patch hold.

The reason to use dutchmen is that a large mass of epoxy will generate enough heat to cause bubbling and complicate your repair. A nicely fitted wood patch, preferably of the same species, will give a good result over time. If you are a careful workman the repair will be undetectable.

You can certainly make a patch with yellow glue but fitting and clamping will be a problem. You could nail it in with little finish nails but you do have to cut some new mortises - right? I bet the metal will be a in bad place for that.

There are downsides to the epoxy method. It takes longer and probbably requires a re-visit to the site. But if its your own home that's not much of a problem. You have to buy something that seems a bit expensive and perhaps exotic, but after you do it you'll find that as a wood worker you use the stuff a lot. So you end up with another great tool in your bag to pull out when needed.

[David DeCristoforo]

"...nothing I write here should be taken as any kind of personal attack..."

Needless to say. That goes for me too and, I presume, anyone else participating in this discussion. So now that that is out of the way, I would like to point out that, technically speaking, Bondo is epoxy. It's just a really thick epoxy that contains a lot of fiber to strengthen it. I don't think epoxy glue will bond any better.

[Myk Rian]

So, Bob.
Have you figured out your course of action?

[Vijay Kumar]

Pull the door and hinges out, then put dutchmen in to repair the old mortises. Plane then sand them to match the frame. Then it's an easy task to cut in the new hinges. I was the door carpenter for a couple of companies and did this very thing a whole bunch of times.
What is a dutchman? Will this work on the steel door O.P was talking about?

[David DeCristoforo]

"What is a dutchman? Will this work on the steel door O.P was talking about?"

It's a patch. But he needs to patch the wood jamb not the new steel door.