Leo G
June 8th, 2010, 12:32 PM
Well, this is more of a pain than I figured. I had a GC tell me to resize some already funky sized doors. Just make them an inch shorter. The doors are about 36w x 34t x 1 3/4"th. Fiberglass shell, foam interior. We decided it would be easiest to cut off the top and not have deal with redoing the aluminum sill. Sound easy? Of course it does. Was is? Nope.
Take the door out of the jamb by removing the hinge pins.
Set up the tablesaw to 7/8" and take an inch off the top of the door (7/8" + 1/8" blade thickness = 1"). Low and behold the foamy interior. The top cap was only about 7/8" deep. So now I had to remove the fiberglass shell surrounding the top composite end cap. Should be easy, set the saw up to take off the fiberglass and leave the core. Damn, this stuff is tough. Gave my carbide blade a workout. Took off both sides, removed the wood ends (this stuff is some kind of particle composite) and go to stuff it in the top of the door, too tight.
So now I have to remove the foam down to the thickness of the composite pc. Started scraping with a putty knife, nope. Took out the router and put a 1/2" straight bit in it and balanced it on the top of the door and cut the foam. Nice, flat smooth bottom at just the perfect distance.
But there are small ribs on the interior for support I guess. Now I can't get the top pc in. The router hit them and really didn't cut them. I figured I'd try a chisel. All it can do is not work. But it did, and good too.
I had to resize the thickness of the composite top pc for some weird reason. Took off almost 1/16" to make it fit nice. Put some Geocell 2300 around the inside edge and pushed the composite top in. Filled in the cracks on the top and wiped it down. Then took to boards and put them on either face of the door and clamped it down. Cleaned off the squeeze out with MEK. Hope this stuff sticks to fiberglass and that composite material.
The rest was pretty straight forward. Take off the header by cutting an 1" off the sides, remove the long ass staples and remaining wood. Cut the new rabbet in the top of the 2 jambs and screw the header back in place. Adjust the size of the weatherstripping and reinsert it.
Done. That's one. Got another one to do. Elapsed time, about 1 hour. The door is still in the clamps. Not sure how long I should let it sit there. Probably over night to be safe.
Fun is.................:mad2:
Take the door out of the jamb by removing the hinge pins.
Set up the tablesaw to 7/8" and take an inch off the top of the door (7/8" + 1/8" blade thickness = 1"). Low and behold the foamy interior. The top cap was only about 7/8" deep. So now I had to remove the fiberglass shell surrounding the top composite end cap. Should be easy, set the saw up to take off the fiberglass and leave the core. Damn, this stuff is tough. Gave my carbide blade a workout. Took off both sides, removed the wood ends (this stuff is some kind of particle composite) and go to stuff it in the top of the door, too tight.
So now I have to remove the foam down to the thickness of the composite pc. Started scraping with a putty knife, nope. Took out the router and put a 1/2" straight bit in it and balanced it on the top of the door and cut the foam. Nice, flat smooth bottom at just the perfect distance.
But there are small ribs on the interior for support I guess. Now I can't get the top pc in. The router hit them and really didn't cut them. I figured I'd try a chisel. All it can do is not work. But it did, and good too.
I had to resize the thickness of the composite top pc for some weird reason. Took off almost 1/16" to make it fit nice. Put some Geocell 2300 around the inside edge and pushed the composite top in. Filled in the cracks on the top and wiped it down. Then took to boards and put them on either face of the door and clamped it down. Cleaned off the squeeze out with MEK. Hope this stuff sticks to fiberglass and that composite material.
The rest was pretty straight forward. Take off the header by cutting an 1" off the sides, remove the long ass staples and remaining wood. Cut the new rabbet in the top of the 2 jambs and screw the header back in place. Adjust the size of the weatherstripping and reinsert it.
Done. That's one. Got another one to do. Elapsed time, about 1 hour. The door is still in the clamps. Not sure how long I should let it sit there. Probably over night to be safe.
Fun is.................:mad2: