Do Not plane the door!!!!! I need to assume the door worked well
when it was installed..
The most likely culprit is a bent top hinge. If this door has or
had a closer on it, the hinge itself and/or the steel plate in the
jamb can be bent. Custodians and teachers have been known to put
a block of wood or a book between the door edge and the jamb to
keep it open. A really strong closer or anyone pushing at the
door will instantly bend the top hinge. These door weigh upwards
of a hundred pounds and can force the hinges to sag a little over
time even without the closer. I would venture to say that if you
were to look at the hinge side gap between the door edge and jamb
when the door is closed, you will note a larger gap at the top
than at the bottom.
Easiest: Eliminate the easy ones first: make sure that the hinge
screws are tight.
A little harder: the hinge has lost some of its swage. You need
to move the center line of the hinge closer to the jamb. You will
probably need to do this to the top and center hinge. You can
take the hinge off, place in a heavy vise, bend with a heavy
sledge and appropriate block. You can place the hinge on concrete
or a heavy steel plate and using a brick set and sledge, rebend
the swage in the hinge. If the door and jamb are in good
condition, you can use a good quality adjustable wrench (Crescent,
etc) and close it tightly on the hinge barrel at the portions of
the leafs that are fastened to the jamb. Push the handle of the
wrench away from the strike side of the door hard enough to bend
the hinge. Get a little on each jamb side leaf knuckle of the top
and center hinge. I think you will be pleased with fixing the
door.
Hardest: Make sure the hinge's mortise is deep enough in the
steel to allow the hinge to be flush with the top of the steel.
If it above the steel, the hinge plate in the jamb has been bent -
you can try to rebend it with a heavy sledge and steel block. You
can try to draw it back into the masonry wall with masonry drill,
countersink, and tapcons.
If things have really gone awry, you can buy a 1/2 mortise hinge,
wedge the door into proper position and install through bolts or
tapcons into the face of the jamb. These hinges are getting
harder to come by, the industry has gone to continuous hinges
which run about $150 per door.
(top posted for your convenience)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Keep the whole world singing . . . .
DanG (remove the sevens)
"Dave Hinz" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 25 Oct 2005 14:06:26 -0700, s
wrote:
On 24 Oct 2005 15:27:23 GMT, Dave Hinz
wrote:
Hm, I have one, and have used it exactly twice. Didn't care
for the
results either time. Any hints for using one of these to, say,
shave
down a sticking door?
planing a sticking door is often a mistake. before you get out
the
plane, make sure that the hinges are tight and set right and
that the
jamb is square.
Well, it's welded steel in a cement block wall (at my kids'
school), so
if it's not, I don't have a lot of options to fix that.
if it still sticks, mark out where and how much and
take the door down and pull all of the hardware. generally
you'll be
planing the hinge side. set the plane for a light cut and sneak
up on
your line.
Ah, hadn't thought of cutting it on that side. Why there,
rather than
the side that's actually hitting?
make sure that you have a good grasp of the door geometry,
including
bevels.
I'm good with the bevels, but far as I know, the rest of it
is...uncomplicated. Or, is there something subtle going on?
Dave Hinz