# A rude awakening



## DonG1947 (Nov 14, 2012)

Traveled down to Florida to visit our daughter over thanksgiving. Of course she had a things to do list for me. One thing on the list was new sliding doors for one of the closets in her "fixer upper". Went to the local big box and bought two 30" Jeldwen doors (only brand they had). I had to cut about an 1 1/2" off the bottom. Well I remember back in the day when there were a couple of inches of solid wood on the bottom for just that reason. Well these doors had a little less than 1". The veneer was attached to pressed cardboard--no wood at all. Veneer was so thin I brought a piece home to measure it. Veneer was ONLY .006" thick. That is not a typo .006" I would venture to say there was way more cardboard in that door than wood.

By the way, I trimmed the solid cut off and glued and inserted it into the hollow space.

Would like to tour the door company to see how the make those doors.

Don


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## Keith Mathewson (Sep 23, 2010)

I guess the lesson there is to buy from a reputable lumber yard or door shop and not from a big box store.


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

I don't have a great deal of experience with Jeldwen millwork but what I have had was really bad. The windows were very poorly made. These windows opened out and when open showed a 2" wide void under the window sill. Then the oak doors made with stiles and rails were veneered and done so poorly the veneer was delaminating.


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## Hammer1 (Aug 1, 2010)

That's pretty typical for all the hollow doors these days. The plugs are usually only 11/16" and knarly grain, too. It's a cardboard honey comb inside. What little wood they use is often finger jointed waste.


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## Rob Schramm (Jul 12, 2010)

Like everything now a days companies are having to cut costs any way they can, the sad but honest truth is that I would doubt that you would get a tour of that plant!


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## GeorgeC (Jul 30, 2008)

I have a condo that had sliding closet doors. If your daughters are like the ones in the condo the best thing that you can do for her is to replace them with standard doors. It not hard to do unless the opening width is quite a bit off a standard door size.

George


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## jschaben (Apr 1, 2010)

I've had to cut several hollow cores down; rentals, fixer uppers on no budget.... etc. The easiest way I've found is just cut it down to size and then resaw a piece of 2x4, 1-1/8" width usually works, and use that to plug it. Just glue it up and tap it in, a couple of brads for good measure. Same works to fix stripped out hinge screw holes where dowels and other means have been tried and failed. Just mortise out the area and stick in a hunk of 2x. May not be all that economical from a labor standpoint but it works.


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## Old Skhool (Oct 31, 2009)

jschaben said:


> I've had to cut several hollow cores down; rentals, fixer uppers on no budget.... etc. The easiest way I've found is just cut it down to size and then resaw a piece of 2x4, 1-1/8" width usually works, and use that to plug it. Just glue it up and tap it in, a couple of brads for good measure. Same works to fix stripped out hinge screw holes where dowels and other means have been tried and failed. Just mortise out the area and stick in a hunk of 2x. May not be all that economical from a labor standpoint but it works.


I've encountered the same thing and completed similar repairs. I've seen them used in $$$ houses. Sad, but for the most part work reasonably well and are reasonably cheap to replace. The guys hanging them aren't making much money either. Seems like the profits float higher and higher to the top anymore and the quality seems to find new lows.:thumbdown:


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## skyking (Mar 24, 2013)

ran into that this year on my own bathroom remodel. I had to cut down the pocket door set, and had to plug the door.


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