Brian Henderson wrote:
The front door to my house is ancient, made back in the 1920s and
hasn't really been kept up well over the years. I had been
planning on taking it down, completely stripping, repairing and
refinishing it this summer when the weather was warm enough not to
have a front door for a couple of days.

Yesterday, I saw that there is a floor-to-ceiling crack on the
outside that is getting wider by the minute. I can no longer wait
until summer, I need to fix it before I've got two doors, not one.

So far, I've come up with two concepts and wanted input as to which
is better, or if there's another way entirely.

1) I can take the door down (it's solid mahogany), cut the door in
two at the crack and reglue/clamp it back together. This is
probably the best solution, but it removes 1/8" from the width of
the door and it's not all that weather-tight now.

Maybe, see below
___________

2) I can drill in from the edge and countersink some long lag bolts
through (the split is about 8 inches from the edge) to pull it back
together, then plug the holes. This can be done without removing
the heavy door and will maintain the width.

No to lags. Through and through threaded rod with large washers would
work but that would be a lot of very long holes and a series of 1"
plugs along both edges. Not pretty. You could avoid through and
through by using shorter rods/bolts into tapped metal dowels but that
would be unsightly too. Either would be a lot more work than
necessary.
________

Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks.

I would first try toolman946's suggestion of getting glue into the
crack and drawing it together with clamps. That will probably fix it
but if it doesn't you can always do your #1 idea at a later date. You
could rectify the narrower width of the door by packing out the jamb.

You say the door is "solid". I take it that you mean it is a slab
door rather than frame and panel. Either way, you need to figure out
*why* it is suddenly cracking after so many years. The only reason I
can think of is differential expansion and contraction; that is, one
face of the door has dried out more than the other. A heated - and
dry - interior in your house could cause that. You really do need to
maintain the finish on the door to avoid problems such as you now
have.

--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico