Thread: Minor furniture repairs

The professional obviously didn't know what he was doing or it wouldn't be loose again in just 10 years.

It will need to be fully knocked down and the joints all taken back to bare timber for any glue to hold it together for any period of time. dribbling glue into the jionts won't fix the problem but will only serve to compound it. Thee is no easy way to fix a bad or broken glue joint, as you have found out.

Had it been repaired by a true professional it should have lasted a minimum of twice as long as the last repair.

Hope this is of some help

Cheers - Neil

Neil that goes without saying, but whos to say Johnno dosn't get up on the table and do the irish jig every night!

Mwahahahaha...!!

Howd yer whist yer great Sassenach fowl!

Ahm Scots - an full of it!


cheeseball burgertushie

I have an answer to my problem with the table - I don't like it, but I agree with it and I thank you Neil.


I don't have an answer to my problem with the cupboard doors - any suggestions please?


Cheeseball Burgertush

Maybe you need to get a better cleaner, NO not the wife, but the cleaning agent. I use an industrial detergent called "Big Red" it is a slightly alkaline, low suds detergent which is mixed at different ratios with water. We use it in a spray bottle at 1:10 instead of spray & wipe and it removes near anything without affecting the finish. It can even be used as an engine degreaser (1:1) or truck wash (not sure of ratio, usually just pour a swig into the bucket). I don't know where you would buy it, it is (or was) locally produced in Cairns by Northern Chemicals, but he may be distributing it further afield. At any rate you should be able to find something similar at an industrial cleaner's supplier. It would be a pity to cover your doors up just for the sake of cleaning convenience (I assume it would be a pity as I'm sure that if they were plumb ugly you wouldn't have posted this!)

Good luck,

Mick

Recently I battled with the decision to buy new kitchen doors or try to refurbish the old. They were solid tassie oak but stained by years of spills.
I was told that the original coating was likely to be a low quality water based clearcoat thinly sprayed. I took the plunge and sanded some doors back to the bare timber with belt sander and delta sander. Surprisingly the stains did not penetrate through to the timber.
A few quality clear coats and they look better than they did new.

I think that I need to go back to basics on these verdompt cupboard doors.

Taking note of the replies to my original questions above - and to a couple of other threads on this BB, I had a good close look at the doors with a large magnifying glass and a powerful lamp.

Things ain't looking good, folks. The quality of work isn't good; the panels have been edgejoined out of 'planks' of Tassie oak that aren't very well matched. The routing is rough in places, and the mitering has been 'jiggled' to conceal some bad joins. Basic practice has been followed in that the panel was capable of 'floating' in the frame, but then some bugger sprayed the finish after the door had been assembled. Given a few of our temperature-variable days and the panels and frames have obviously expanded and contracted at different rates - not a pretty sight! There is in some cases a sharp edge of finish that has pulled away from the frame, with raw timber showing. This is what my wife has attempted to clean, but the cleaning products have stained the raw timber...

Should I start from scratch, or is it practical to take the doors apart, sand them back to raw wood and refinish them? Please bear in mind that I have no idea of what glue was used in the original construction, and the company that put them together no longer exists - at least in its original guise.

Obviously I should have paid much more attention when the kitchen was being installed, but at the time I had very little knowledge of good woodworking and had enough problems managing a high-profile job and a father with dementia.

Now that I've 'retired' and have learned much more about woodworking from you good people and others on the Web, I would not even consider having a kitchen made in the same way again - mind you, I wouldn't attempt to do it myself - neither my trusty Triton gear or I are sufficiently competent to produce the quality of work that I want! But at least I now know enough to be able to specify and monitor the kind of job that I thought I would get last time!

Any suggestion appreciated - and I've already called myself all the
idiotic names you may like to come up with.

cheeseball burgertushie
(Johnno2)

If the doors fit properly but are uggly at least you have a real good bunch of templates.

If you want easy to clean laminated board is fast cheap & easy just buy a few sheets and cut them exactly the same & fit the existing hardwear.

If you want the timber look, there are heaps of people who service the kitchen industry with solid timber doors. just order em a little over size & trimm to your templates.

Tip.
do not two pack solid timber doors it will almost certainly crack.

when you finish blow some finish into the frame/panel crevice with compressed air then finish properly.

cheerrs

Originally posted by soundman


Tip.
do not two pack solid timber doors it will almost certainly crack.

No almost about it..It will! if they use what they should be using on 2-pac kitchens..

This is my second try - maybe this one will go with the notes, but if not: the vertical dark line at the side of the frame isn't a shadow, it's where the panel moved and exposed raw wood which has been stained by various 'ceaning solutions'.
You can also see the different shades of timber used in the panel, and the mitre joint - they're all different.

No-one's yet told me if it's practical to take this kind of door apart - it's the only way I'm going to tidy them up - or do I throw them out and start again?

It depends on what it's been glued together with. If it's PVA you might be able to get the doors apart without having the panels come to pieces by staming the joints. This MAY soften the glue enough for you to knock them apart. Hold your breath, cross your fingers, hope for the best and give it a few taps. If it doesn't work you can always use it as an excuse to buy new toys ...er tools so you can make new ones.

Good luck

Mick

oh yeah, they're easy to dissassemble...get a scrap bit of timber and place it stratigically and give it a sharp tap with a hammer. you'll no doubt find they'll fall apart fairly easily, but expect some damage, which should be easy to repair. Big job though... Pulling apart two or maybe four doors is one thing but a whole heap.... Have fun! Mwahahahah...

Quote - "No-one's yet told me if it's practical to take this kind of door apart - it's the only way I'm going to tidy them up - or do I throw them out and start again?"

Why do you need to be told what to do? You have two clear options ....
1. Try to pull them apart and fix them
or
2. Turf them out and start again.

Now why not try option #1 ... if it works you have saved yourself some money and you get the satisfaction of doing the job yourself. If you pull them apart and they cant be fixed then turf them out and start again ... thus moving onto step 2.

Just try one and see how it goes ... you really have nothing to loose .... maybe an afternoon but thats about it.

Sorry I am just getting ready for "tell it like it is Friday" - Triple J breakfast shift.

Good Luck

Stinky

Thank you folks - I guess I just have to bite the bullet and try to take the damn things apart.
I tend to lean toward the steaming and a judicious belt with a hammer.
What can I lose?