Repairing a wood door after removing a deadbolt latch is no easy process. The lock cylinder leaves a 2-inch-diameter hole fully through the door, and there’s another hole in the door edge where the bolt used to be. That’s a lot of room to fill, especially because there’s no actual support for the patching material. The two most important factors to consider when sealing huge gaps in solid wood doors are construction and beauty.In this article we discuss how to repair a door lock hole .
How To Repair A Door Lock Hole
Installing a dutchman is the right approach for this type of repair. It is something that shipwrights and boatwrights do all the time. You can also contact any Commercial Locksmith in Melrose Park.
- Remove the damaged wood around the edge of the door and 4–5 inches on either side of the damage.
- Taper cut on both ends so the ends of the slit emerge gently from the edge of the door. Then, fit a piece of wood into the recess with care. Make it a quarter-inch thicker than the door and a bit less proud on the door’s edge.
- If you have a nice fit, you may glue and clamp it in place with resorcinol – Titebond 2 or 3 would probably work as well (but they all require a good fit and high clamping pressures to achieve a solid, strong glue line).
- Otherwise, if your woodworking skills are lacking, bond and clamp it in place with a decent epoxy such as System 3 or West System. Epoxy is tolerant of broad glue lines and prefers lower clamping forces (joint starvation weakens things).
- If your fit is sloppy, make two batches of epoxy, one unthickened and one thickened with wood flour, microfibers, or fumed silica, to a paste-like consistency. Your epoxy supplier will have these thickeners on hand.
- Prime both sides with the unthickened epoxy, then add a sufficient amount of thickened epoxy and clamp it up while it’s still wet.
- If you use fumed silica to thicken it, keep in mind that it is effectively powdered quartz. Sanding or cutting will be almost impossible once the epoxy has cured.
- Trim away as much excess as possible while the epoxy is still “green” — after it has begun to fix but is still rubbery.
- It’s worth noting that you don’t need clamps for something like this: 4-6 screws, 2-3 on each side of the damage, coated with mold release or wax and pushed through the edge of the Dutchman into the edge of the door. If you’re going to use screws, dry-fit the Dutchman and pre-drill the screws in it and the door.
- Once the epoxy has cured, remove the screws, counterbore the holes, and place wood plugs with glue (rather than dowels) to seal the holes.
- Set it up such that the screws are countersunk and counterbored, then insert wood plugs on top of the screws. If you leave the screws in place on an outside door, consider using silicon bronze screws to prevent corrosion. And stainless will not work since stainless requires oxygen interaction to be stainless. Stainless steel develops what is known as crevice corrosion when it is not exposed to oxygen.
Crevice Corrosion On A Stainless Steel Bolt:
After that, a few minutes with a sharp block plane to even everything out and make the surfaces level with the original surface, and you’re ready to paint.
If done correctly, this repair will be virtually inconspicuous (and entirely invisible on a painted door) and at least as sturdy, if not stronger, than the original wood.
You’ll also have to repeat the lockset installation.
Fillers:
Regular wood fillers work well for simple repairs, come in various wood kinds, and maybe tinted to match. Regrettably, the large gap produced by a lock cylinder necessitates a more strong filler that is difficult or impossible to conceal. Those manufactured with polyester or epoxy resin are among the most weather-resistant and long-lasting. These two-part products are often blended in smaller quantities and built up in layers to cover the hole.
They are comparable to vehicle body filler, which is also commonly used to fix big holes in wood. Although some of these heavy-duty fillers promise to be stain-resistant, the results vary greatly, so test the color first to determine if you can live with the results. Otherwise, prepare to paint the door.
Wood:
When it comes to durability and structural integrity, nothing beats genuine wood to fill a huge hole in a door. A dowel of the appropriate diameter works nicely for the round hole in the door edge left by the bolt. A big dowel, albeit more difficult to come by, offers a strong filler for the lock cylinder hole.
However, you will almost certainly need to paint the door since the exposed end grain of the dowel will appear extremely different and stain considerably deeper than the surrounding wood. Cut a piece of wood with the face grain exposed, known as a dutchman in woodworking jargon, if you’re handy and have a router with the right templates.
A patch of this type will still be visible in a stained or clear-finished door, regardless of how closely the wood grain and stain color match.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, we can say that repair a door lock hole is not a quick process but we can get through it. However, you can get it done with the help of any affordable locksmith. I hope this article has answered your query about how to repair a door lock hole.