A few years ago I decided to change our up and over garage door to side hung doors; I became fed up of throwing up the door each time I wanted to get in and out of the garage. I like woodworking so was to make the doors myself out of softwood with ply lower panels and wired safety glass upper panels.
I visited a local timber yard and selected the sawn timber having this delivered. Dimensioning and jointing the timber wasn't a problem; I used through wedged mortice and tenon joints for strength with exterior grade adhesive and I enjoyed the job. All went well and I hung the doors on heavy galvanized strap hinges before adding the panels. Fortunately and rarely the weather was kind for a change.
With the doors now hung and fitting perfectly I gave the new timber a power sanding using my Bosch random orbit sander; I applied plenty of knotting over the many knots then primered; undercoated and glossed in oil based paint; I was over the moon to have completed the job in good time and to enjoy working in decent weather.
However once the sun hit the doors the trouble started; what had appeared to be dry timber proved to be wet through on the inside with sap and this started to break through lifting large areas of paint and every knot also blew; the timber had felt dry on the surface and I was very upset to see this happen. The knots were bleeding badly but also large sections of the plain timber started to ooze sap, I didn't want to start making new doors at £200 a time plus labour so I needed to resolve the problem quickly before the rare mild weather returned to our usual dire weather as it is now with horizontal rain slamming the bungalow front?
Having lathes is very useful; I bored every knot to 5/8" deep using Forstner bits then I turned wooden plugs with a very slight taper to fit each recess; next I generously applied waterproof exterior adhesive and forced each plug fully home by hitting it with an hammer. Once the glue set I then planed each plug flush adding a bit of filler if required to make good. The doors now looked dreadful so I burnt them off and started over but this time I left them a few days with the sun giving them some grief to draw out the sap? I used lots of white spirit to wash away the sap and only when I felt happy did I apply aluminium primer then re-finished the doors as normal. The surfaces of the doors suffered by all the sanding but at least I salvaged a bad job and the doors now look pretty good whilst giving me instant access just opening one a bit to let me in/out so in the end I saved a wad of money and sorted out the worst timber I've ever bought; I no longer visit the supplying timber yard because I no longer trust their quality; as I say all during machining and handling the timber I hadn't a clue as to the nasty secret it held but it didn't take long for me to find out; our neighbours must have thought I'd gone barking mad finishing the doors to a very high standard then burning them off again; not a job I wish to repeat? Good job there were only 32 knots or it might have taken a while to plug them all: Looking closely at the pictures sap can be seen on the surface of the timber and also where the knots have been bored the inside of the timber is wet. pukeleft:
I've been backing up all my data to memory sticks and the pictures popped up; I hope I haven't previously added the details but the story is here in full.
Kind regards, Col.
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There are other timber yards nearby and my chums know of the problems as you also now know.