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A lady from church who knows I build guitars recently asked if I would look at the doors for her Grandfather clock. She put the clock together from a kit years ago. The doors are both warped and will not shut. She said she tried several methods of using weighty objects to flatten the doors before she finished them. Nothing work and she eventually finished the doors and stuck them on the clock where they have been for years. She has kept the doors shut for all these years by tying a ribbon right around the clock. Anyway I have the doors know and am trying to figure out what to do with them. I thought before I get carried away I would see if anyone had some good suggestions for getting these things flat. Here are some pictures of the little door for the clock face.



You can see where I cut a few relief slots in the back of the door. I was going to cut the slots, fill them with glue and clamp the door so that the slots pull closed. I think I need bigger slots or more of them if this is going to work. However I decided not to cut anymore without seeing what you guys thought. Any suggestions here would be really appreciated.

Josh

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Josh House

Canadian Luthier Supply
http://www.canadianluthiersupply.com
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House Guitars - Custom Built Acoustic Instruments.
http://www.houseguitars.com

Big cabinet shops run them through a widebelt before finishing. BobCef built a bunch of cabinets if I remember right.

We had a similar problem at the school with the storage building doors. 2by4 construction with siding on the outside. Warped every which way. After analyzing the problem, this was the solution. Adding a skin to the backside, gluing too, took care of it. We also assembled flat on the deck. This won't work here.

Nice of you to try for the lady!

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Josh, I had this problem on a couple doors for a gun cabinet. I did what you did (cut kerfs about 1/4" apart) and in that situation, was able to glue a strip to the inside of the frame (don`t go any deeper than the deepest kerf in the pic). I had to add that strip all the way around to make it look like it was supposed to be that way. I glued everything up, and clamped them dowm with a spacer in the center to counteract the bow (about 1/8" in my case).This way, if the bow is still there, or you suspect it may try to return, you`ll have a bow going in the right direction to counteract. Leave it clamped for a couple weeks. Also, you could attatch cabinet striker latches at the top and bottom of the rails and adjust them up relatively snug to help hold the frame where it should be. Hope this helps. It worked for me.

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Give me 50 cents worth of regular.
Check my oil too, if you don`t mind,,,

I sure do think I'd be caught just building new doors before I tried to
repair a warped one like that. Seems like a whole lot less trouble,
especially if you alrady have the right router or shaper bits laying around.

Thanks for the tips guys. I know that they will be helpful.

I really don't want to make new doors. I'll do what I can with the warped ones. I don't want to spend much time on these things either.

Josh

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Josh House

Canadian Luthier Supply
http://www.canadianluthiersupply.com
https://www.facebook.com/canadianluthiersupply?ref=hl
House Guitars - Custom Built Acoustic Instruments.
http://www.houseguitars.com