A friend has a sheet music cabinet with a door on it that has severely cupped.
The door (approximately 18″ wide x 24-28″ high) appears to have a core of solid wood onto which thick veneers of mahogany were glued. On the front face (the convex side), the curvature is so severe that the mahogany veneer has come unglued from the side edges, and is held in place only along a line down the center of the door.
She’d like to flatten the door and reglue the veneer so that the cabinet is again useable. It doesn’t appear to be antique, but does appear old; sentimental value is a factor, but not overriding.
Any suggestions for how to flatten this door ? Replacement of the door is a last-ditch option; I’d like to try to flatten the existing door if possible.
Replies
Mark are both faces of the door exposed to the eye.
If the inside face in not visable and can be 'Relieved' with a few saw kerfs, t can be pressed flat again while adding glue and slim 'Splines to the inside of the door'
I've done that to many warped or bowed (Cupped) sliding closet doors Steinmetz.
Yikes! Stop with the saw kerfs already! In a desperate situation, that remedy could possibly be considered, but yuck! First, try the "rehydrating" method to get that concave side to re-expand.
I have used this method on solid wood tabletops (small ones) several times with excellent success. It involves laying the stock on the grass concave side down. If it's real hot in your area, or the sun beats down pretty hard, do it later in the day or early in the morning. You want the concave side to absorb moisture and the convex side to stay dry, but you don't want to crack the wood! Use common sense -- if the grass is actually wet, lay down a sheet or two of newsprint or other protective material.
The concave side will hopefully become flat. Bring the piece inside and set it where it can get all-around circulation. If it re-curves, repeat the process. You can even let it go just a tad past perfectly flat (overcompensating, as it were). I've never had it take more than 3 tries to get the job done.
Important: When you feel you have the piece evened out, you need to get that veneer glued down and finish both sides as soon as possible to prevent the same thing from happening again.
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Another proud member of the "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
Forestgirl should have used capital letters and bold print when she said...
"finish both sides as soon as possible"
These problems almost always result from unequal temperature/humidity levels on each side of the door. When you get it flattened out, finish all six surfaces (top, bottom and side edges as well as front and back) the same way. Depending on the finish used, it may need re-doing after a while.
amen!
Forest Girl's suggestions have great merit. I have my grandfather's (Poppie's) tool box, which had been severely tweaked 40 odd years ago when my father thought he could take it off the wall by himself. At first blush just the hinges were sprung, but upon a second look it was obvious that all three sections of the box were twisted.
Some careful disassembly, followed by a thorough soaking with linseed oil, and then by gradual compensatory tweaking, got the sections sufficiently straight that they now close. Certainly they don't latch like they did, but they do latch. Should FG's ssuggestion not work you might consider this approach.
Good luck!
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled