My house was built in 1921 and has solid wood 6 panel doors that I are all in good condition but some have been painted. One of the interior doors has come apart at the rail and stile joint (from top to bottom) so doesn’t close properly. I have stripped all the paint off of the door and would like to fix it so that it fits and closes. My question is how to get the door apart without damaging it. I assume that the glue used was horse hide glue and I’ve heard that it can be heated to loosen the joint. I am unsure of this process (use just heat or heat and moisture)? The door looks to be made of yellow pine.
Thanks to anyone that has experience with this kind of problem.
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You are correct, sirrrrr! Heat, in the form of moist heat, like water. And actually hot water might get you better results. If it's PVA (yellow) glue, vinegar softens the stuff enough for you to slip joints apart usually. You gotta wiggle and yank until you get that hard *sluck* sound like when you pull a knife out of something warm and sticky ( uhhhh, like a doughnut?) just kidding. Some of your hotter solvents will eat at yellow glue as well, like laquer thinner, acetone, tolulene, xylene. But none of these are instantaneous. You have to let things soak and soften before you gently pull the joints apart. Vinegar is probably the safest bet on multiple fronts for PVA.
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