Following on from Bifold door – Part 1
For a change I was able to get home from work at a decent hour on Monday so I made a little progress on the second section of the door.
Having unclamped the timber from each side of the door I clamped the two sections of the door at right angles to each other again for planing
Once again I cycled between planing, checking the edge was square and measuring the panel to ensure it remained even.
To try to minimise the tearout on the ends of the middle crossmembers I had packed some slivers of wood into the gaps, which while not perfect certainly gave a better finish than the other side
I didn’t manage to get any time during the rest of the week, but on Sunday I made a little more progress.
First I played with the various options for how to hang the door:
Option 1 – as manufacturer intended
Option 1 is as the manufacturer intended, with the door hanging from a rail at the top of the door. I don’t like this option – the rail is obtrusive and the folded door will make an already narrow door frame even narrower
Option 2 – free hinged
Option 2 is to hang the door on regular hinges. This could work ok, but is likely to require a bolt on the middle hinge to prevent pressure on the center of the door folding it and popping it out of the latch.
Option 3 – reverse free hinged
Option 3 is my prefered option, with the direction of the fold reversed to allow the door to fold round the door frame. This should prevent pressure on the center of the door popping it out of the latch because the door only wants to fold outwards and is prevented by the jamb.
After a bit more thought I decided to go with option 3 and also to trust the first side I glued to bear the weight of the door (I improved the clamping and used slightly more glue for the second edge, so I’m a bit more confident in it)
I cut some mortices for the hinges (I should perhaps have spent the time figuring out how to do this with my router, but this was the first opportunity I’ve had to use the new set of Irwin Marples MS500 chisels I got myself as a bit of a Christmas present)
I also rebated the hinges in the central fold to give a bit more clearance in the frame and close up the gap between the two panels
I was hoping to have finished this project by now, but I’ll post this now and hopefully the next post on this subject will be the last …
