8 easy Steps To Fix A Dent In A Wooden Door
Hollow core doors are much cheaper & more common than the other doors which are made up of solid wood, but they are also a lot more fragile & prone to damage and scratches. While holes in your doors or unattractive laceration might seem burdensome to repair, it will take 2-3 days to repair. Simply patch up holes, dents or fill in the scratches before refinishing the surface and your door will look better.
- Cut Away: First you need to cut away the broken or loose wood from around the hole or crack.
On your door, some loose fragments or splinters around the edges of the crack or hole may be present. Make sure not to repair them, simply use a utility knife to cut the damaged wood until you only see a clean hole from the rough edges. - Paper Towels: Next, take a paper towel and pack the hole with it. The paper towel will not make your door stronger or repair but this is only to hole the insulation foam in the proper place while it dries fully. Assemblage up a few paper towels & stuff them around sides & bottom of crack or hole which you want to repair.
- Expanding Foam Insulation: Now, you need to fill your hole in the door with the help of expanding foam insulation. This foam comes in a spray can with a long nozzle attached to the top. Simply keep the nozzle on the crack or on the hole in the door and then start spraying. This insulation foam will start expanding to fill the space inside your door, do not overfill the hole because the foam will come out from the hole.
- Dry: Next, leave this insulation foam to dry for a whole night. Once the foam has filled in the crack or hole, you need to cut or sand it but remember this foam needs to dry before cutting or sanding.
- Trim Away: Once dried, now you can trim away the extra foam by using a utility knife. Position your utility knife slenderly above the insulation foam, carry on your trimming process until this foam sits 0.1 inches(2.5mm) below the face of your door.
- Auto-body Filler: After trimming the foam now you have to apply auto-body filler for more stronger repair. Simply mix together two parts of auto-body filler and one part of hardener catalyst & spread this mixture over the hole in the door. Grab your putty knife and use the edge of it to smear & press this mixture over the crack or hole, filling in divergence & make it roughly flush with your door.
- Quicker Fix: Next, you need to cover the hole or crack with spackle for a quicker fix. Use your putty knife to scoop out the spackle & spread it over the hole in the door. Work in smooth, long strokes to smear this spackle over your door as evenly & smoothly as possible. Wait for at least one complete hour for the surface to dry. Even if you repair your door with an auto-body filler compound or with a spackle, it will take around 1-2 hours for your repair and mixture to dry entirely. Leave your door to dry until it becomes hard to touch.
- Sand Down: This is your final step, simply sand down the surface of your door. Take a sheet of coarse grit-sandpaper (100-120 grit), to start your sanding process, sand off the applied compound until it is level with the surface of your door and also looks flat enough.