Sunday, July 06, 2008

hanging a door is hard

Today we hung a door. Getting the job done was a whole family effort. David did not do much work, it is true, but he was very cute and that helped to inspire us to keep going. Loren did much picking up and gophering. Vernon provide meals, advice, humor (often at the same time as advice) and did major demolition. Kelly did the wiring and rough carpentry and I did design, finish carpentry, and much trimming. I cut bead board Friday and Saturday, and today, I chopped the studs to length and mortised the hinges and generally assisted in getting the door hung.

Mortising hinges without a jig is fiddly. I marked the layout with exacto knives. Then, I used a laminate trimmer with a 5/16th inch straight bit to remove most of the stock and finished with an exacto knife and a 1/4 inch chisel. I sharpened the exacto and the chisel between mortise with an extra fine diamond whet stone. I love not needing to find the oil. I love how fast the material is removed, and I love how quickly I can get a sharp edge. There is a reason experts use jigs to layout and to mortise. It took us all day to get that door up.

We are redoing a bedroom in an addition to a house originally constructed in 1938 or 1940, depending on which documents you believe. Noting is square or plumb, except our new door and the wall it is in.

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