1830 farm house - door restoration, advice appreciated

[jazzman]

Greetings to all --

My wife and I own an 1830-ish farm house, some say it's an "eyebrow colonial", but what ever it is, it has the original front door. This door has been badly in need of restoration since we purchased the house almost 6 years ago. We finally have the time to do it, and could use some advice.

With copious amounts of non-toxic paint stripper, we have stripped the interior side, and are now in the process of stripping the exterior, which is in much worse shape. I have attached several photos to illustrate before/after and problem areas.

The door has is frame and panel construction, with two lower and two upper panels. The panels all have cracks in them, and it looks as though prior owners have tried to remedy the situation with some type of (now very hard) caulk.

The bottom of the exterior side is the worst area of the door. I have a woodworking shop on site, and can repair the crack that runs parallel to the bottom of the door, in between the two stiles (vertical members on the left/right of the door). The stiles are attached to the rails with tongue and groove construction. I have included a photo of the very bottom of one corner of the door, where it's evident that there is separation or shrinkage between the stile and the rail. However, there is no soft wood and the stiles seem well connected to other door components. I don't think this can be repaired without taking the entire door apart, and don't want to go down that road.

We want to preserve as much of the original detail as possible, but the molding on the exterior side (around the panels) will have to be replaced. It's just too far gone, in my opinion.

There does not seem to be a way to easily repair or replace the panels. I have considered some specialized epoxy to fill the cracks, and the use of CPES (epoxy sealer) for at least the exterior. We will paint the exterior, but would like to have the wood visible on the interior.

Advice about any phase of this project is much appreciated.

Thanks --

Jazzman

[jazzman]

more photos....

[jazzman]

last group of photos....

[angolito]

lots of hard work there.

does anyone else think this might be an interior door repurposed long ago as an exterior?

[Sombreuil_Mongrel]

Angolito might be on to something. From the non even placement of the rabbet (end grain of door stile photo) I can tell you that the door originally had molding on just one side. Which is not uncommon. I see many old doors "molded one side" with the fancy side toward the hallway or foyer and the plain side in the chamber. Front doors usually the molded side out. This means your door is either backwards or came from another place.
The best interests of a door in this condition is complete disassembly, followed by the restoration of each separate component. In this way alone can you glue the panels back together with any degree of success greater than 50/50. The heavy weathering of the outside will have likely penetrated into the joints.
Early doors of this date will have wooden pegs that can be driven out quite readily. The peg will have a smaller end on one side of the door, drive out from that side with a 1/4" punch. And the joints o these doors never saw any glues (nor should they now).
Of there is real rot or moisture damage the components can be made whole with a penetrating epoxy two-part system like Abatron or Advanced Repair Technology's Prime-tech. If you use a product like that on the assembled door you have taken an irreversible step because the door would then be truly cemented together and the panels could never be properly seen to.
Casey

[SkipW]

And the joints o these doors never saw any glues (nor should they now).Casey

I'm wondering if a previous owner may have thought they were helping matters by putting epoxy or glue around the panels, thus preventing them from moving freely and then cracking with weather expansion/contraction cycles of the door.

[jazzman]

Thanks folks - appreciate all the feedback.

[jazzman]

Casey --

First of all, thanks very much for the advice.

I had another look at the door, and found a peg sticking out from the lower corner of the door, on the side. It's about 3 inches long, definitely doesn't reach to the other side. There seems to be two pegs per mortice and tenon - one at the bottom of the mortice, and one at the top of the mortice. All pegs are visible from each thickness side of the door, not from the interior/exterior sides. However, I don't see a way to remove them. Any suggestions as to how to do it?

The remaining pegs seem jammed in real tight, and I can't get a grip on them - they are flush with the side of the door.

To be honest, I think the panels should be replaced, but couldn't (under all that paint) see how the door was assembled. I just assumed that it was glued together.

I've not heard of Abatron or Advanced Restoration Technology's Prime-tech. I have only heard of CPES. Any idea how these three products compare?

Thanks in advance --

Best,

Jazzman

[Sombreuil_Mongrel]

Those are wedges, they jam into the tenons to force them tightly against the narrow ends of the mortises. To disassemble they all would need to be withdrawn.
Here's the ART epoxy page
http://www.advancedrepair.com/architect ... system.htm
Casey

[jharkin]

That door does look alot like my interior doors, which are in the same general age range.

Question - how thick is that door? If its thin, say 1inch or a little more then it most likely was built as an interior door. However that doesn't necessarily mean it was not used as the entrance door originally. Entrance doors were sometimes made up by taking a thin interior door and then nailing a board and batten door to the backside to give it extra thickness and strength. The batten side would face in. Or you might have 2 doors, a batten door opening outswing as a storm door, with a door like this behind it opening inswing.

Here is one of mine before I refinished them - looks very similar even down to the same wood type. The panels are raised on one side, flat on the back. Some have moulding both sides but most only on the raised side.