Best way to trim a door frame header?
I had a project to fix some doors that had gone out of square due to home settling. Not much work, really, just raise the hinge side of the door jamb 1/4″ – 3/8″ or so to get the strikes to align and even up the gaps at the header. And get the outside bottom corners to stop scraping the concrete floor or sills.
In two cases, there wasn’t any room between the top of door frame and the header, so I had to take the sawzall and trim a quarter inch off one or the other to get some space to work.
Of course, the sawzall blade doesn’t cut perfectly straight, no matter how you hold it it tends to angle up. At least, it does that for ME. And that means that there isn’t as much gap in the middle of the jamb as on the edge.
Is there a better technique for doing this kind of cut that would make a nice horizontal cut? The two doors I was dealing with were 4 1/2″ and 6 1/2″ jambs.
Replies
Instead of raising the low side of the jamb leg
lower the other side's leg.
I'm assuming your retrimming the opening.
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The doors I was dealing with were all on concrete slabs, and one of them the outside corner was scraping on the floor. I mean, really scraping, like a two handed pull. And it was a metal door, the sound was like a thousand fingernails on blackboards. Lowering the strike side wasn't an option.And unfortunately, none of them had ears on the tops of the jambs.
It looks like you just discovered the beauty of wood doors versus metal. But regardless, that's a pretty tight fit to the rough opening.
I'm gonna get killed for this, but you MAY have to cut out a bit of the rough opening header to get a little room to raise the door and frame up off the floor.
Another possibility is to spread the strike jamb out a little bit--say a 1/4 of an inch or so--and shim the bottom two hinges to give yourself some clearance off of the floor.
Good luck.
I wound up cutting a bit of wood out of the header and lifting the whole hinge side up, worked pretty well. I didn't think about spreading the strike jamb and shimming the hinges but I'll keep that in mind for next time.There was surprisingly little clearance under that door. But there are a number of features in this house that are surprises. We think it was framed for different doors, and someone got a deal on the metal ones and "made do".At least the homeowner is happy now. I guess they have been fighting this door for some time.
http://www.calnan-web.com/weblog/2008/11/30/door-jamb/
If they were prehung doors I would just cut the ears off the top of the jambs instead of cutting into the headers. Japanese pull saw is more controlable than a saws-all.
usually if a door was plum and square when it was installed it can be brought back without altering the framing
I'm guessing you might be able to shim behind the hinge jamb at the lower hinges to kick the strike side up and achieve a decent margin at the top of the door. then if the strike side margin is too tight you could remove some shimming behind the strike side jamb
if it ends up slightly out of plumb it wont be enough to fret about
I would use a hatchet to chop the header.Make sure if there are any nails you set them deep or pull them out temporarily.Doesn't have to be pretty , just need a bit of clearance.If you want, strike a line across the face of the header. Then use the sawzall to cut to depth every 3 " or so.This should help you with chopping if you are not used to using a hatchet.
mike
So much for FINE homebuilding!
There's a lot to be said for flamethrowers, too -- just sponge down the parts that you don't want to vaporize.Seriously, though, it's amazing how ugly some of our fixes can be!...Until we trim them back out, that is, and then they look like a million bucks.And that's what they pay us for.AitchKay
Yeah, I Know and agree.
Trouble is ,I do not carry a hatchet in my tool boxes and can't quite imagine doing so.
Was certainly not meaning to flame the technique. Of course whatever means necessary and a trim guy can always solve issues.
Just the image of the hatchet wielding trim carpenter seems an oxymoron. :)
Edited 12/1/2008 10:54 pm ET by s crough
Done the same thing many times with the ripping claws of my Vaughn hammer.
That is definately easier to imagine!
(A guy I used to work with suggested we should use a beaver on a leash for one problem we faced...)I'm with the other hinge-tweakers, too. And if Huplescat's long-screw trick doesn't work, try deepening the top mortise -- the gap is usually bigger there anyway, from sagging.I've never been a fan of the hinge-bending trick. You can't expect future painters to know that they have to put the same hinge back in the same mortise. It's just passing the problem off to someone else, or getting a callback. And I can't charge for a problem I caused, so it's unpaid time.You're right about Sawzalls -- they're hard to get an even cut with, especially when you're cutting a wedge that starts at zero. Drilling three to four 1/4" holes close together at the fat end of the cut might be easier. Then hog out as much of the waste between them as you can with the drill. If you can make room for a couple of inches of Sawzall blade, you should be able to plunge through those holes to the other side.Once you've got a straight start in solid wood, the blade will be less likely to drift.AitchKay
I do not carry a hatchet in my finish box. When you need the correct tool you go get it. I am used to installing doors and frames in openings that only a butcher framed. I retired 3 years ago after altering 25 door openings out of 60 in a three million dollar home.I wound up getting $100.00 per opening to hang prehung doors.Not worth the aggravation even if the money is good.After that job I swore I would never trim again after mexican framers.My main tools on that job was an 8lb sledge,hatchet, and a sawzall.
mike
Doesn’t sound like they would have helped with your doors, but long hinge screws torqued into the framing thru the top and middle hinges can raise the strike side by a fair amount so, just for the record, that’s always the first thing to try.
I think there was a tip in FHB about using a sheet metal tool (a muffler cutter, maybe?) in an air hammer to chisel away header stock. anyone?
also, shimming the bottom hinge will obviously swing the latch up, if you've got the room. or there was tucker windover's hinge knuckle bending technique, although that was more for fine tuning.
on a related note- what do you think caused the latch side to settle? i ask b/c i've got a few calls lately about new and radical settling (in N. Cali.) causing door issues, and I suspect it's b/c its been frighteningly dry for about ten months.
k
the house is on a steep hillside and has settled a bit toward the downhill side of the hill. All the doors were in walls perpendicular to the hill face and were distorted in the same direction.
ah.
k
Wood Beaver... AKA.... Electric Chain Saw.
Don'tcha wish they made nail-cutting chains, though?Aitchkay
great idea! carbide tipped chain saws, somebody needs to make them!
Yea yea I've had the idea for carbide chainsaws for a few years now. The chainsaw can solve many problems, best part is the bar dosent curve as you cut like a sawsall, but theres always that danger of nails, touch one and its pretty much toast.
Always wondered why they don't make them and wished I was an inventor, zip out window openings with one and never do it any other way
They do. Fire departments use them for cutting through roofs.
The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one. --Wilhelm Stekel
I guess you're already finished with the project, but I like typing anyway, so...
I run into this a lot, since most of my work is on 80+ year old homes. The way you're doing it is the right way. Bending hinges and/or intentionally warping the hinge-side jambs is the quick way, but this is fine homebuilding, not quick apartment fixin'. =D
Running a recip saw with the wood grain does indeedy make it difficult to get a straight cut. One trick is to use the largest, knarliest toothed blade you can get. Think rip saw vs crosscut saw. Another trick is to cut as deep as you can on both sides with a circular saw, then use the recip saw to get the last bit the circular saw wouldn't reach.
BTW, the one big drawback of doing it the 'right' way is that the jamb and casing no longer reach the floor. That may or may not be an issue, depending on how the floor is to be finished and/or who would be looking at it. So, in some cases distorting the hinges and/or jamb may be the right way to go.
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Oh I missed that can you get just the chain for normal saws or would you need that special saw Ive seen them use, it dosent look like your run of the mill homelite.
I think you can get the chain for a regular saw.
The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one. --Wilhelm Stekel
I just tried to look it up and they are available for some but it seems like you could spend at a minimum 200.00 up to 500.00 some were even more! For a chain!
Sure carbide saw blades last a lot longer but they dont cost ten times the price of a non carbide one, we wouldnt use them everyday if they did and I can burn up a carbide saw blade pretty fast after I find a dozen nails they are not to great.
You’re right. I guess the last time I tried to find a carbide chain was pre-Google (back when cave men were babies!). All I could find back then was something that resembled a Partner saw. I can’t remember whether it had a circular blade, or maybe a pear-shaped bar.But yeah, Rapco evidently makes a carbide chain. At $2,695/ 100’ bulk price, a chain for your saw would probably be at least $100, but that’s not out of the question.It could pay for itself in one day on a job like cutting existing common rafters off to receive new valley rafters on a dormer addition.Electric chain saws are the best for carpentry --I’ve got the lamest ever electric chain saw, an all-plastic Wen or Monkey Wards or something, that someone abandoned on a job once. All of the plastic housing-screw sockets are stripped out, so I’ve got it through-bolted. But it’s amazing the things I’ve done with it!I’ll have to get a quote on one of those blades.AitchKay