On 7/17/2012 10:21 PM, Puddin' Man wrote:
....

Also made concerted effort to split off the hinge stile from the rest and
partially failed. It more-or-less separated itself at the bottom, and the
intermediate rails separated, but the stile wouldn't come free of the top rail.
The lock stile did separate on the other side of the top rail. The pattern of
the joint is very intricate, and it doesn't wanna break. What did they use to
bind such stuff back in 1955? Glue? Epoxy?? What (if any) chemical can I use to
break the joint???
....

I know I said I'd quite watching but "best laid plans..." and all that

Well, good...that's good progress, actually.

They were glued, probably w/ a resorcinol or similar waterproof glue of
the day. You don't need to get the joints that are still tight fully apart.

Now, just work (gently so as to not screw up the cope cuts any more than
can avoid) to clean up all the surfaces of the old paint, dirt, etc.,
etc., until you're back to an original surface.

Then reassemble (dry!!!!!!!!!!) and work see if you can bring the rail
ends back into full contact w/ the stiles. If so, now you can begin to
work on any out-of-square issues. Actually going back and looking at
the picture of the door itself you posted, it really doesn't look like
there will be much of a problem other than perhaps the bottom stile
where the dowels have shrunk some and probably the holes are hogged out
from all the flexing from the extended time they have been loose.

Again, use a story stick and measure the diagonal (after checking that
the two stiles are the same length as well as that the top and bottom
widths are the same in order to account for the fact it may have been
trimmed to fit an out-of-square opening before).

Again, I can't emphasize enough----patience, Patience, PATIENCE!!!! is
the key in the cleanup and reassembly. If you can only stand the tedium
of gently cleaning/scraping/_lightly_ sanding for an hour at a time
before you start throwing things and getting rough on it then just lay
down the tools and come back the next morning...

Again, you _CAN_ do this...and it'll be just fine when you're done if
you just work carefully to not do irrecoverable damage by too
enthusiastic scraping, etc.

Have you been able to work the other dowels out? That's a key
element--if they're still solid themselves and seem to be solid in the
hole of one end, don't break them off; those ends will be fine. Use a
proper-sized drill bit by hand or very gently in a drill to clean out
the others and check fit. If you do need either a larger dowel or to
plug and redrill the ones on the bottom rail, you do need a doweling jig
(either store-bought or home made but it has to be accurate if the
latter) to line them up properly if redrilling.

Another poster has suggested some product as a filler I'm not familiar
with--I can't recommend or dis-recommend it as being a long-term cure.
Unless the diameter is very close, I don't recommend epoxy as the
filler/glue--the commonly available ones aren't good for long-term
reliability when thick glue line. I always either go a larger dowel in
a cleanly reamed hole or plug and then redrill. (Or sometimes in rare
cases where there wasn't good material around the hole I'll actually
turn the dowels into loose tenons by chiseling out the area between two
existing holes. This adds a _lot_ of surface gluing area at the expense
of some work. (Much easier if can take the pieces to the mortiser, but
doable by hand w/ just some time and again, that p-word I've been
preaching ).

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