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Need advice on doors...


wormwoodz

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So I was planning on dressing up the 'doors' that came with the Beacon Hill kit and pretty them up a bit, but I'm feeling a bit disheartened to find that most of them are not in a good shape... they came with some pretty big imperfections (holes) on the 'bad side' of the plywood cutouts.... and I don't think I'll be able to cover these up :(

doors_damage.jpg.4e588df09ebcc50f1d93937

I want my doors to have a wood finish so the plan was to stain them, but some of these 'holes'/'scratches' are not only deep into the plywood but also look darker around the edges (as you can see from pic above, looks like a burn mark) and I can't think of a way to disguise them without covering up the surface entirely. I'm trying to think what I can do about this and the most logical solution seams to be to just cut new ones out of wood. So I went to check on prices of the wood boards, plus hinges and the trims I'll need to dress up the doors, and it all started to add up... to the point I have to wonder if it would be cheaper to just buy pre-assembled doors and use those instead (even if I have to pry them out of the casings and hinge them). The Beacon Hill doorways seam to be a bit narrower than most "standard" dollhouse doors so I suppose I'll probably have to modify the openings to fit them? I doubt I could 'cut' the pre-fab door to fit and not look 'weird'.

What should I do? My house is still in 'dry' fit so it wouldn't be a problem to widen the openings, but I am not sure if that's a wise decision considering the space around some doors isn't a lot (specifically, the second floor bedroom 'wardrobe' door). Have you had this problem before and what did you do to 'fix' the door and have a smooth surface? Should I just scrap them and make new ones from scratch? 

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I'm not sure what basswood is called in Portugal, but I would invest in some 1/8"/ 0.3mm basswood for the doors and another piece half that thickness for cutting trims and panels to dress them up.  Your premade doors that come hinged in casings are made to fit 3/8" plywood/1mm and the wood in the Beacon Hill  is 1/8" thick.

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I'm not that familiar with the BH door but think it looks like the one attached.  It is 3/8" deep. I have successfully cut the depth to 1/8" so that the frame is flush with the wall. I think this is better than building up the trim.  These doors already have pins in them which connect the frame to the door so that hinges are not needed. The pins can be removed so that the doors and frame can be painted separately.

 

http://www.miniatures.com/Split-Six-Panel-Door-P17735.aspx

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How do you cut the frame on the prebuilt door to 1/8"?  I found 1/8"' strip wood and I make a box to fit snug within the door opening and  pin-hinge my scratch-built door within the box.

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17 minutes ago, havanaholly said:

How do you cut the frame on the prebuilt door to 1/8"?  I found 1/8"' strip wood and I make a box to fit snug within the door opening and  pin-hinge my scratch-built door within the box.

There are a couple of ways:

1. Clamp the frame in a vise and cut with a small fine toothed hand saw.

Or

2. Rip the frame with a mini tablesaw.

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On wood I would opt for Walnut. Lovely close grain and smooth.......almost as smooth as me! (Wife notices comment, yawns 'you wish' and turns over).......as I was saying it's a smooth hard wood and stains or oils well. I get mine in variety of sheet thicknesses.........along with a variety of other good, goodies from 'The 4D Modelshop' here in the U.K. (London)......All well packed and shipped.................Dare I say!

To your DOOR!

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Can you use wood putty to fill in the holes - then paint a base color on the doors similar to the color of the wood,

next - with cheesecloth (I think?), stain over the the base coat, creating a grain??

Experiment 1st on scrap pieces. :dunno:

 

 

 

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9 minutes ago, mesp2k said:

Can you use wood putty to fill in the holes - then paint a base color on the doors similar to the color of the wood,

next - with cheesecloth (I think?), stain over the the base coat, creating a grain??

Experiment 1st on scrap pieces. :dunno:

I use old teeshirt rags, but I didn't think one could successfully stain over paint.  On the other hand, one can make an acceptable wood putty from sawdust and wood glue and add just a tad of stain the color you're planning to use to fill the gaps, and then stain it al to match.

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6 minutes ago, havanaholly said:

I use old tee shirt rags, but I didn't think one could successfully stain over paint.  

As for staining over paint ... you're not really staining, more like putting a glaze over the base paint, then dragging something through it to imitate the grain.

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Thanks for all your sugestions, I have been pondering this overnight.

I checked diferent component brands and "Streets Ahead" has a couple doors that are a few mm narrower than "Houseworks", could work for this purpose.

@Sable and Holly: in the past I didn't have a very good experience with prefab doors, have 3 in my Fairfield (balcony and attic) from Houseworks, the balcony one arrived broken: I had to pry it out from frame and hinge it. They looked a bit flimsy in construction, but I'm looking into ways to save costs on wood and these doors can be cheaper than making a new one from scratch. 

@MikeUK: I agree those woods look much better than basswood/plywood, I was checking Bromley crafts they seam to have shorter sheets that I could perhaps use to cut doors without having a lot of "waste" (I need at least 5 doors). They have both 3mm and 5mm thick (10mm wide), mahogany and walnut: https://www.craft-products.com/mouldings.asp?pg=3 

I also need to buy wood for panneling, but I'll probably either use plywood or cheaper obeche/basswood sheets with 'chair rail' strips of the same material attached, won't make much of a diference after painted.

@MikeUk, Kathie: I have been thinking about this too, I guess stain would make it easier to match the stairs with the doors and everything else. Perhaps the doors could still look nice with a slight diferent finish, I will try to experiment a bit. I should probably test the stairs first thou, I'll have to stain them during assembly.. it's a bit of a headache planning this house without gluing the walls together but I'm glad to notice these small issues now.

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