Door up

Following the contraption construction reported at reference 1, there was no longer any excuse not to get on with rehanging the study door. Which turned out reasonably successfully. The door does bind a little at the point of shutting, but it does shut and I think it will do.

The contraption did indeed stop the heavy door flapping about in an unpleasant way while I fiddled about with the hinges. Plus a plentiful supply of wedges with which to fiddle with the heights and angles. And the door still fitted in its hole well enough. No need for hard-core plane action. A door which, I might say, had had to be adjusted to allow for some movement in the frame over the years, probably the result of disturbance under previous management to the door close to, but not exactly, underneath.

The strategy of cutting blocks of softwood into the damaged part of the door frame, while leaving just enough behind to mark the position of the hinges, worked well enough, avoiding the fiddly business of fitting hinges from scratch. Glued and screwed, with substantial screws, a lot more substantial than those used on the hinges themselves, so the new blocks should take the strain.

The alternative suggested by the insurer's carpenter was to move the hinges away from the damaged parts of the frame, but I differed. The damaged parts would still need to be mended and the hinges would, visually, be in the wrong place.

Repairing the damage to the lock part of the door frame and of the door itself went well enough, with more cutting in, with more glueing, screwing and pinning. Not an invisible mend, but neat enough, and when painted up will look well enough.

But fiddly business notwithstanding, it was perhaps a mistake not to replace the hinges, cheap, lightweight things compared with what I should have used for doors as heavy as this. One of the doors downstairs, for example, has full on rising butts, a world away from the hinge snapped here.

I am now busy with making the plaster good, and hopefully the length of architrave mentioned at reference 2 will be back in place by Boxing Day.

Reference 1: psmv4: A contraption.

Reference 2: psmv4: A trap for the unwary.