PLEASE anyone have any idea's on how to repair my front door?

[Old-gal24]

The top layer of timber is splitting of my front door which is very weathered at the bottom of the door.  I have asked a few places here and I get much the same result.  Oh just buy a new front door. 

My reply is NOT IN MY BUDGET and what a waste of door.

I'm thinking I will have to strip the back the top layer of what I think is ply and try and replace it and plain it back till its level and seal and repaint.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated..

[ProjectPete]

Sorry to say what you don't want to hear @Old-gal24 but IMO your best option is to replace the door. That veneer will peel off, likely damaging the solid core which you'll then need to treat, buy ply, attach ply, sand and finish. By the time you've spent all that time and money doing that, you'll wish you had of just bought a new door - it'll turn out cheaper and less stress for you.

[Old-gal24]

@ProjectPete  I think deep down I thought that would be the way I have to go. 

The more costly side of the door situation is a matching door to side smaller fixed door, not sure what they call it when you have one full sized door and what looks like a half sized door but it's fixed to one side.  But it's matches the full door.  So I would have to replace both as they match and I haven't seen the same patterned door any where in Bunnings or in door books.

Its a sad waste, if it was sealed and painted properly in the first place and kept maintained it wouldn't come to this.  *(sorry I hate waste)  Everywhere I've gone in this house so far the painting has been shocking.  Backs of robe doors not even painted.  Same as inside robes, no paint or shelving.  So I've been keeping busy doing what I can inside after renovating or I should say creating a garden where there wasn't one.  As well as having a shed built and trying to set that up. *( still a work in progress).

Thanks again for your suggestions.  

Cheers

[royq]

Hi @Old-gal24,
It won't hurt to try to fix it Take the door off and see if you can work some wood glue in under the bits that are peeling up, obviously clean out any dust first. Then apply masking tape over and clamp a straight edge to it. Remove masking tape and sand once glue is set. Add some filler to the low spots and sand again. It seems like if you are going to throw it away anyway you might as well try to fix it, if it fails you haven't lost anything.
Cheers, Roy

[Brad]

I have recently been fixing chairs and a door that someone made a half hearted attempt to jimmy open and split the ply.

Thin glue 

Also comes in a smaller bottle for a slightly lower price.

[Jaymo]

You can find matching doors, special orders at many door specialists if you can't find a matching door, make sure you ask for the best quality door, the problem with the existing door is it's laminate, not the correct quality for a door that will receive wet weather to it's surface, also not painting top and bottom of the door is the main cause of this type of lamination, the effort to fix may be short lived due to the construction, it will be difficult to repair as the laminate cover has changed shape and is weak and may be rotted in places, first you will need to inspect under the laminated area for dust, dirt and rotted particles, remove them (difficult process) you will need to clamp down the surface after working glue under and this leaves you with with the problem of how to stop the glue that will ooz out from clamping the flat piece of wood needed to the door, and without careful consideration that's a likely scenario, you may find you make more damage trying to repair and there will be filling and sanding needed and in the end it may still look wrong as you will not be able to duplicate the textured surface, and as I said, paint every surface, even the ones you don't see once the door has been installed and it's best to prime with a specialized waterproof primer such as Zinzer then paint with quality external paint, only easy way would be to attach a stainless steal kick cover over, which may not be the most aesthetically pleasing (32 years as both maintenance hand and head of maintenance for a major Hotel Chain)

[chez1951]

I would look at buying some thin checherplate and screwing and gluing in onto the damages area

[Jaymo]

There are stainless kick covers available, alum checkerboard would be less appealing and much thicker.

[Jason]

Hi @Jaymo,

Many thanks for joining in the discussion and sharing your vast experience. We are really looking forward to reading more of your posts soon as it sounds like you have a lot of knowledge that you can share with the community. We trust that in turn you'll also receive some helpful tips and some inspiration for upcoming projects from the rest of our clever and creative community. 

Please let me know if you ever need a hand getting the most from the site, or have any feedback about how we can make Workshop more useful to you.

Welcome,

Jason

[Jason]

Hey @chez1951,

Many thanks for the suggestion, I'm sure @Old-gal24 appreciates your response. Feel free to post anytime you need assistance with your own project or have something to share. We have members sharing helpful advice and project inspiration every day so I'm sure you'll fit right in. Welcome to the community. 

Jason