A contraption

The study door got a bit bashed about a couple of months ago and needs to be repaired and rehung, something I have not attempted for a while. With this panel door weighing in at what I imagine is more than fifty pounds. From the days before the second war when even internal doors were solidly made out of pitch pine. With the front door being finished flush, made of some solid composite and weighing even more.

I dare say a regular carpenter on piece rates would have got it all done in a day or so, but I am taking my time, spreading the work out over a number of half day sessions. Repairs now nearing completion and the possibly tricky rehang looms. So waking up this morning, I decided that I needed a jig to hold the door steady while I fiddled about with the hinges: not something I bothered with in the olden days, but I am getting on a bit to have fifty pounds of door swinging in the breeze.

So we now have a jig made from timber recovered from our garden shed on its demolition, poles from estate agents' signs and fibre board recovered from a neighbouring skip, as previously mentioned. Most of the screws were recycled, some were actually new. As bought from Travis Perkins. A length of twine is visible, hanging at the back, ready to tie the loose end of the door in through the keyhole. The odd wedge under the floor plate to line the door up to the frame and off I go.

Only one error noticed so far, fortunately a minor error. The top bit of batten locking the white buttresses in place should be on the other side, so that the loose end of the door snugs up to the brown length of two by two. Hopefully no more than a couple of minutes in the morning to fix that one.

One other event of note. In the course of getting one of the extension leads down for the electric drill, the white plastic casing to the four way socket at one end shattered into quite small pieces. No idea how old it was, but not something which has happened before.

PS: I might say that the new drill bits from Halfords are earning their keep. Should have replaced the old ones years ago.

Reference 1: psmv4: A trap for the unwary. An earlier episode of this yarn.