…it just prompts me to try even harder to prove them wrong.

The Back Story
We have a hollow core pocket door (i.e. cheap) off one side of our kitchen that the internal header in the door had failed. The header was a piece of one inch pine that was glued (only) to the inside of the door skin on both sides, and the glue had failed on one end of the header allowing the door to sag badly on the leading edge. After removing the trim and doing a bit of surgery on the upper frame of the door, I finally managed to remove the door. After identifying the problem, I talked with a couple experienced carpenters I know, and both suggested they would simply replace the door. Since I didn’t want to have to try and match the stain for a new door, I asked about fully separating the existing header from the door and replacing it instead. Both individuals told me I’d likely spend a lot of time, and in the end, simply inflict additional damage on the door. Well, I opted to ignore them and try it anyway.

Disassembly
I laid out the door on saw horses and with a pair of wide putty knives and a couple chisels, slowly tried to separate the rest of the old header from the door skins. It was slow, and I cringed every time the door skins sounded as though they were going to break, but in the end, I managed to get the old header out.



Repair
I went to my cut off bin and found a couple pieces of one inch thick maple. I liked the idea of using maple as its more dense and tougher than pine. I cut the pieces down to size to fit, and glued them together giving me a new 1”x2” header.



Then I applied a liberal amount of wood glue onto both sides of the new header, inserted it into the door, flushed it with the top of the door, and applied a bunch of screw clamps. The door sat in the clamps overnight just to insure it was completely cured. Recognizing how the other door failed when the glue let go, I opted to drill a 3/8” hole through the leading and following edge framing of the door and into the newly installed top header. Then I glued in a pair of 3/8” dowels, let them set up, then used a flush cut saw to flush them up, and finished them off with a little stain.





Re-Installation
The hardware got re-installed on top of the door, and the door went back up. After a few final adjustments, the door works better than ever.



All in all this repair cost me pennies and allowed me to re-use the original door saving me the cost of a new door as well as the time and effort to stain and finish a new door. And best of all, I got props from both of my carpenter friends when they saw the final product.

The lesson in this adventure...sometimes perseverance and refusal to accept something can't be done trumps experience.

"Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done and why. Then do it."
-Robert Heinlein

(and sigmonkey has proved it to be a truism, again and again...)

Great job. Only a homeowner would take the time and effort to do a job like this. To the pro’s time is money and it is faster for them to just slap in a new door.

I only see one problem. You didn't use enough clamps.

Nicely done!

To a production carpenter, time is money. They'll come up with any excuse NOT to do a job like that and it would indeed be cheaper to replace the door than pay $xx an hour to a pro to do it.

For homeowners, especially us retired types, time is cheap and the satisfaction of repairing rather than replacing is valuable.

Very good work and pics, bigdeal. I have done the same to doors that had so much removed from the bottom rail that the skin came loose, but I owned a cabinet shop Maybe the end dowels were overkill.....

Nice clamp collection! The ⅜" dowels is a rockin' idea! Decades ago I worked in a lumber yard, and Charlie, the door guy, was often called to trim down hollow core doors. But he never secured the top (stile?) into the rails.

Next you'll be removing hollow-core bathroom doors and filling them with sound-deadening insulation.

When I pull something like this off I feel like doing an endzone dance. Such a small victory, yet so very good feeling.

Well done.

Any idea why the original header failed?

quote:

Originally posted by Ripley:
Any idea why the original header failed?

They didn't use enough clamps while gluing it together originally.

That's awesome, bigdeal. Great job. It looks really nice.

Was it hard to get out, and to re-attach the hardware?

Way to go!! Awesome job done and door looks like it hasn't been touched.

Nice Work, Having done a few of these I really appreciate the patience you exhibited removing the old stile. Dowels were actually a good idea since regluing skins is sometimes dicey owing to the original glue residue.

I love pocket doors.
Nice work.

I have two that are short. I wish I could fix them like that :/
Great job !

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:

quote:

Originally posted by Ripley:
Any idea why the original header failed?

They didn't use enough clamps while gluing it together originally.

I wondered if something in the door's environment caused the problem. With all the surface area between the header and panel and a low stress joint, hard to figure how that much glue could fail.

I am a professional carpenter, and I would have done the same thing as the OP.

Doesn't that look great? YES! It is an open and shut case!

While I've never had pocket doors in my home, I think they are kinda neat.

I can also appreciate the value of doing it myself and saving wads of cash. I'm the guy that read that an automatic transmission can be rebuilt using $80 worth of parts...

It took three weekends and a few swear words too.

quote:

Originally posted by cne32507:
Maybe the end dowels were overkill.....

No such thing. One time when I was building cabinets for my garbage, my elderly neighbor came over to check things out. First words out of his mouth were..."You know you aren't building those for NASA, right?" My response...."I only know how to do things one way. And that way requires everything to be as near perfect as possible." Just the way I was raised.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:

quote:

Originally posted by Ripley:
Any idea why the original header failed?

They didn't use enough clamps while gluing it together originally.

Very funny pal. I suspect the failure had something to do with a teenager who only knows how to slam doors around.

And for the record, that's only about a third of the hand clamps I have in my shop.