how to salvage weakly constructed frame and panel doors

[tom coleman]

I made 5 panel doors w plywood inserts and hardwood frames 3/4" thick. I grooved all the frames and used pocket hole joinery and Titebond 111 for assembling frames.

Big mistake.............the 1 1/4" screws have no holding power because of grooves. A 2 inch pocket screw is too long and penetrates the face side.

Are these doors salvagable. Mending Plates? Thinwood backing for door frame?

[Richard Shaefer]

3 possible solutions

pull the doors back apart and mortise them for loose tenons (easy)

leave the doors together and mortise a slot down though the joint and slip the tenon down in and sand flush.

leave the doors together and drill two dowels in from the edge of the panels right across both pieces.
then drill and install a face grain plug to hide it.

[Loren Woirhaye]

Remove the pocket screws. Plug, then install Miller Dowels.

[David Eisenhauer]

Disassemble the doors - remove the panel and use biscuits to put the frame back together with. Rabbet out the back inside of the assembled frame and then glue and pin/staple the ply frame in the back recess. The glued panel will add the strength to the frame. I built many bathroom vanity frame and panel doors like that over 25 years ago and they have shown no signs of coming apart. If you don't believe the doors will be strong enough, build a test model and put it through the destructo test and you may be surprised.

[Doug Garson]

I assume you grooved the vertical panels full length and that is why there isn't enough material to hold the screws. If you can disassemble the doors just glue some scrap wood (preferably the same hardwood) into the grooves at the screw locations, redrill and glue and screw them back together. No one (except everyone on this forum �� ) will ever know.

[Andy Pratt]

There are plenty of screw sizes between 1-1/4" and 2", those can help you here I think. The glue alone should be adequate given good joinery, and the fasteners should be insurance at best, and most would consider them unnecessary. If the glue isn't holding you have a bigger problem and the correctly sized screws aren't going to solve it for more than a year or two.