# twisted door frame



## Pabs (Dec 10, 2008)

hey all

was building some door frames last night and ran into a problem…maybe you can help

these doors are 32" high by 13,5" wide

using 3/4" stock for the frames….the stikes are 2" wide.. top rail is 2" an bottom rail is 3,5"

the joints are mrtisse and tenon

cut all my mortisses yeserday then proceeded to cut the first set of tenons…all great unyil I installed

seems either my mortisses or my tenons aren't perfect and they are going in at aslight angle… that means when the whole thing is assembled the frame is slightly twisted… comes up abou t 1/4" from end to end.

I can twist flat by hand..

it<s><s><s the best technique? with clamps or simply by putting a ton of weght on the panels once the glue and clamps are installed?? or can/shoul i fix my mortises and/or tenons?? if so, how??

Pabs


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## turkva (Aug 7, 2007)

Check out Charles Neil's video on fixing a twist in frame and panel doors. His site is located here "http://charlesneilwoodworking.com" . Click on Tips and Techniques, then Quick Tips, then it should be the first video listed. It is really pretty easy, but it does take a fair amount of time. I have used this technique myself and have not been let down yet. Cheers!


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## Karson (May 9, 2006)

Good luck I've found that my problem was the mortise holes were not cut straight into the pieces. My mortise machine was cutting about 88 deg and not 90. It was bowing when I tightened the clamp So I put a shim under the back edge so when I tighten the wood it goes to 90 deg.


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## Pabs (Dec 10, 2008)

i'll the video later when I'm home…

Karson, what did you mean when you said you put a shim under the back edge..

under the actual board or in the mortisse itself?

and what's the best way to check if the mortisse is cut at 90? I have not cut the tenon for the other 3 doors yet so I can make some modifications if possible….


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## teenagewoodworker (Jan 31, 2008)

it could also be that the wood for the stiles has moved some. if you didnt mill your own lumber then the chance that the wood it warped is very high. also if its not quartersawn because those little thin pieces of wood are very unstable. you need really good lumber to make it work.


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## Pabs (Dec 10, 2008)

no…I think the pieces are ok… I milled them a while back (over a month ago) and had them stacked up under weight all that time… when I grabbed them a couple of days ago they were still nice and straight


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## turkva (Aug 7, 2007)

I had an issue similar to this last year, for me, the table that I clamped the doors up on had a slight twist to it. All my doors were twisted about an 1/8 of an inch. I built a new assembly table and that problem went away. Even though the rails and stiles were perfectly straight, they dried up twisted.


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## DaleM (Feb 18, 2009)

When I had that happen the first time, I had already glued up so I had to do what Charles Neil did in the video that turkva linked at the top of the page. The next time, I realized it was a problem before I glued up. It was my mortise out of whack. I removed some wood from the tenon from both sides, bringing it out of square to the stile, but square to the mortise. I then glued laminate to it to bring it back up to the right thickness and trimmed it to fit. It worked for me. I made a real simple quick image. The red lines are what the tenon would look like after I fixed it, before I laminated it.
http://i687.photobucket.com/albums/vv232/daledman/Tenonfix.jpg?t=1238435347


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## Pabs (Dec 10, 2008)

hey Dale…

nice fix… but in my case not sure I could do the same since mine are off in the other plane.
basically when I drilled (or chiselled) down that's then they lost their squareness…

your case the stile and rail where not butting up flush… mine is flush but comes up at an angle… basically the shoulder is tight on side and there's a small gap on the other…

I'll play with it a bit more and try and clamp down in position…if that doesn't do the trick… I'll move to the hot water treatment…

when they say they soak the wood , how soaked do they actually make it? and how long would they have to leave it clamped?

they didn't mention those details in the vid..
I mean my doors are not attached to anything… I could put the whole unit in the tub if I wanted! hehe

turkva, you mentioned you do this often, how do you proceed?

Pabs


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## DaleM (Feb 18, 2009)

Pabs, okay, I understand what you are saying and I agree, my method won't work for that. I just have one more suggestion then. If you can cut a loose tenon to fit tightly in the mortise, glue it up and flush cut it, then redrill or rechisel the mortise straight, I would suggest that rather than bending the wood.


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## Pabs (Dec 10, 2008)

Not sure I understand what you are suggesting… what do you mean by "cut a loose tenon to fit tightly in the mortisse"???

if it's loose how can fit tightly? I must be missing something 

and then you say I should glue it up and THEN rechisel the mortise straight?? not sure I see that as well

maybe I need more coffee


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## DaleM (Feb 18, 2009)

By loose, I just meant not attached to anything. It should still fit snugly to completely fill the old mortise, then glue in and cut flush so you would essentially be starting over on the mortise and redrilling the whole thing again, hopefully straight this time. If you look at my project on my shopmade drillpress, it was some crooked holes for dowels is the reason I made that. I did the same thing with that, glued in dowels, flush cut them, then started over with the repaired piece of wood and drilled all new holes, only straighter the second time around. I hope this helps. I always know what I'm trying to say but it doesn't always come across right so if you still don't understand, I'll try to clarify.


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## Pabs (Dec 10, 2008)

oh oh…. I gotcha now…you are basically saying I fill in the mortises, glue them up and re-drill! 
the first time I read that I thought you meant glues up my door panels and then re-drill the mortises! that's why I was confused..

I understand what you are saying now…

I guess I could do that….man o man, not in the mood to go that route though….I have 16 mortises to cut…..

maybe I'll just convince my wife that the crooked doors are actually part of the design!


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## DaleM (Feb 18, 2009)

I feel for you. I do most of mine with a router but it's still a pain.


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## Pabs (Dec 10, 2008)

well, actually, doing them with a router would give a better chance they end up at 90!


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## DaleM (Feb 18, 2009)

Yes, it does go at 90 degrees and since I've switched to a spiral bit, I get a really clean, straight cut. I just leave the mortises rounded and round off the tenons with a chisel. I found that easier than squaring up the mortises. I've attached a link for a picture of the project I'm working on now. I believe there are over 50 mortise and tenon joints already on this project and I'm not done yet. It's a guinea pig cage. When I'm finished, the front will be a door within a door. The entire front will fold down for cleaning out the cage. I still have to attach the top and make the bottom cabinets that this part will sit on. I'm putting some metal wire cage material around the inside of the frame.http://i687.photobucket.com/albums/vv232/daledman/Guineapigcageinprogress.jpg?t=1238524759


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## Pabs (Dec 10, 2008)

that's one fancy cage!! nice!


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## Pabs (Dec 10, 2008)

well, I think I may have managed without having to re-do everything

I took all my piece last night and tried one by one, basically attaching one stile to one rail.. had on a flat surface… would then check to see which one was off. once I found the one that was off. I checked and in most cases the mortise was just a bit off… I managed to clean it square… in a few other cases, I simply shaved off the bottom part of the tenon to make it fit… 
the joints were still tight enough… I may have to shim one but all in all I managed to get my doors pretty flat!

I'll glue it up this weekend… if some glue up with a warp I'll use the hot water trick on them..

thanks for the help guys…. I'll post my pics once I'm done


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## DaleM (Feb 18, 2009)

Good luck with the glue up. I'm glad you managed without having to redo them all.


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## Pabs (Dec 10, 2008)

hey all

finally got some pics up from the final product
project page

thanks for your help…pretty happy with the end results … some things I would do differently of course…but that's life, a series of lessons! 

Pabs


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## stefang (Apr 9, 2009)

Just another little comment Pabs for the future. It really pays to to mark a reference side to your rails and stiles when cutting them. If the mortises are not perfectly centered and/or the tenons are not perfectly centered (as is most often the case) then gluing the two together with the uncentered side down on one, and up on the other creates twist. I hope I have explained this good enough. If not let me know. It is a very important point in avoiding twist.


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## lcurrent (Dec 15, 2007)

A loose tenon means you can put it in your pocket if you want not that it will fall out of the mortise

Larry


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