Rwh56

My weathered wood panel exterior door has many splits in the bottom endgrain of the hinge side stile. The door opens at ground level, with a four inch high threshold, so the bottom is exposed to rain and snow. A split visible on the face, is about three inches long. I would like to glue and seal the splitting endgrain of the stile.

I was thinking of using some leftover West System epoxy. Not sure how to get it into the cracks. I was thinking of warming the wood, flipping the door upside down, pouring the epoxy onto the endgrain cracks hoping the wood cooling will suck the epoxy down into the cracks.

Any thoughts on gluing and sealing the endgrain is appreciated in advance.

(Tried to post this query earlier, but couldnt find it on the forum. Forgive me if this topic has been posted twice.)

Rob

BridgeMan

Had a similar problem on an exterior front door of our Albuquerque house. Except ours was split in 3 or 4 places, both bottom panels. Fixed it with wood filler, thinning it down with lacquer thinner to wedge it into the cracks with a putty knife. Let it cure a few days, sanded it down, and stained to match the door.

A few thoughts on your epoxy idea, as I've used or supervised the use of a lot of epoxies over the years--heating the wood is likely to significantly accelerate the set time of most epoxies, possibly making it harden or at least thicken before flowing into the crack. If you are locked in on epoxy using gravity feed, make sure yours is of low enough viscosity to actually get into the crack. You might consider getting one of the inexpensive injection kits, tape over the crack except for a few small entry openings, and pump away. You hadn't mentioned what the door's finish is, but most epoxies don't take stain very well if that's what you have.

nealtw

After you've done your repairs cover the bottom 8 to 10 inches with a stainless steel kick plate like you see on resturant kitchen doors.