Repairing old strike plate holes

rossk26

rossk26

rossk26

Soldato
Joined
23 Nov 2009
Posts
5,409
Location
North East of England
I'm replacing a few doors in my house, and one one door in particular, they had a rather like strike plate with a dead bolt lock on a bedroom door (no idea why). Anyway the hole is far to big for a standard strike plate.

What can I use to fill the hole, but can then be later shaped with a chisel and drilled to install a new strike plate?
 
car body filler!
if you want to pay a bit more for car body filler that has been tinted brown and called 'high performance wood filler' you can buy this:
http://www.screwfix.com/p/ronseal-high-performance-wood-filler-natural-550g/51811
(which i had to do as it was an emergency)

I filled all of the old holes and hinge cutouts like this in my doors to rescue them and put smaller 'rose' type handles on. same with strike plates etc. relocated the handles too.
it goes off very quick. working time is short so do it bit by bit. It hardens chemicallyso it can be as thick/deep as you need it to be. you can lay it on roughly and sand it back / chissel it back out I had to move hinges a few cm so had to fill half of the old recess)

IMAG3182.jpg


if the doors are have a wood grain it's very easy to scratch the grain pattern back in with a screw or something else sharp so it all blends in.

[edit] - realised you're probably talking about the door frames - same is applicable here; I rebuildt all of mine with body filler and basically started again.
 
rossk26 said:
Nice one, I'd spotted that Ronseal stuff before, I can get it reasonably cheap with staff discount.
Click to expand...

yea it's good stuff - but only because it's just car body filler, and car body filler is much much cheaper, but if you can get it cheap anyway go for it! I'm very used to using it as I've used it for years in the past, but if you haven't used it before it might be worth just mixing a small batch up to see how it works and how quick it goes off. Les is more with the activator; if you put too much in it will go off very quickly and will tend to not set quite as hard; err on the side of less activator rather than more if possible. 'golf ball to pea' is the general recomendation for eyeballing the ratio.
 
Mark M said:
Can you link to the car filler you'd recommend as I've got a similar job to do thanks.
Click to expand...

Any car body filler will do as long as it's a paste/activator based system. I used to use the stuff Builder's Equipment had in stock. I'd look up your local motor factor and give them a bell to see what they have in stock. P38 is very common, but can be expensive.
 
Aye, depending on the shape of the recess you risk the body filler coming out - you can stick a screw in with the head standing proud, which would anchor it fine but probably be just a touch awkward if you need to drill it in the future!:p
I'd go with WillyNelson's idea, spend a bit of time cutting a piece of wood (or even several segments if necessary), slap wood glue over everything and knock it into place. Then you can sand it down to whatever shape you need to, and drill/chisel in the future with no problems.
Hell, you could even use Gripfill or it's equivalent to hold it in and act as a bit of a filler if your replacement wood bit isn't perfectly shaped - the pink stuff is bulletproof! Where I work we have a lot of disabled access bathrooms put in Govt. buildings, so you can just roll a wheelchair in under the shower and the floor is shaped so the water drains away in the centre.
Our Clerk of Works once went out to inspect one while it was being built - the guy was doing the floor with marine ply and using pink Gripfill to hold it together.
When the Clerk of Works questioned him about this, he got a withering look and a "Son, I've been in the trade for 40 years - if pink Gripfill wasn't the dog's danglies, half of Belfast would have fallen apart by now!":D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom