I need some help from any wood door experts out there…Tom O’Connor sent me these photos and asked what might have caused the horizontal lines. The lines were not visible until the doors were field finished. There are only 3 wood doors on the job (luckily), but the lines are mysterious because the 2 left-hand doors came from one skid of stock doors a month after the right-hand door came from a different skid. The lines appear straight and horizontal, and in addition to the more-defined lines, there is a fainter shadow/smudge about a foot below.
Any theories on where these lines came from? WWYD?
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I have two theories:
-Door is very high (more than 10′ and had to be made in two sections. During the time, the joint has begun to appear.
-Or, this is a figured transom at top
Tks
Most of the time it’s due from dragging the doors if the top line is a scratch. The other could have been from something on it like a band that light made a protected area and the rest was bleached from the light.
I am thinking during the manufacture process a roller or something similar caused the line, and the staining just brought it out.
It is just too straight of a line
Are there divided windows nearby where the sun could have etched the kines into the finish while it was drying?
Definitely not an expert but…
During the manufacturing process the doors were lightly scored by rollers or something else as they moved across another surface. Very light marks or scratches so they weren’t noticeable but enhanced with dark stain.
Just a guess on my part.
That would be mine as well, the veneer was likely damaged slightly when it was installed and showed up when it was stained.
storage issue perhaps
Those lines look like a defect in the veneer press at the manufacturer. Possibly a guide roller fell off and the “finger” holding it dragged across the face of the doors. The handing was done after the blanks were made. I would bet there are more than these three doors in that batch with the same defect.
Definitely man-made. The top one seems etched into the wood. The lower one not so much. You may be able to sand these out and restain the door. Be careful if it’s a thin veneer. Don’t want to sand through it. Bottom one should work. Top may be problematic.
There are too many possibilities and we may never know for sure. Handling marks, tool marks, how they were stored, etc… Anything that changes the surface of the veneer (making the pores more open or closed than the surrounding surfaces) will have an affect on how the veneer accepted the stain. If it wasn’t visible before finishing, the marks could not have been very deep. A more thorough sanding before staining might have prevented this. You have to see a fair amount of saw dust before you can say it’s been adequately sanded.
The bottom photo seems to indicate an indention at the horizontal markings. If the top line is in exactly the same location on BOTH of the doors in the photos, then it seems to me that they were stacked back-to-back with some sort of obstruction between them–a wire, a strap, a piece of plastic. So my guess is that this occurred at a time AFTER the manufacture of them, and BEFORE or during the delivery to the jobsite.
In any case, the finisher should have stopped at the first door when he realized that there could be a problem. I can tell you that there are other issues with the field finishing of the two doors in the photos but you would just think that I’m ‘piling on.’
I’m pretty sure that whoever manufactured these doors are not responsible for these flaws.
Multiple pieces of core material inside?
What’s the veneer? Is this rotary cut? I can’t see any flitch lines on the faces, so that’s what I’m assuming?
Most likely culprit is some kind of issue with a rolling knife in the log veneer cutter. When the log is rolled and the veneer is sliced off, the rollers likely left some kind of odd mark in the veneer. The knife could have hit a knot or something in another log and been damaged and it was too small to see, but when you put a dark stain on, it sinks in differently in that spot. You’re likely going to see this in a bunch of flitches until the knife is either sharpened, or the mistake is noted more prominently. Definitely take this back to the door mfg and have them review.
If the lines are at the same height off the floor
They could have been made by a Baker scaffold being pulled or pushed thru the opening.These types of scaffolding is commonly used by sheet rockers and Tapers
Looks like during the assembly of the door the core was put in as multiple pieces instead of one full piece. The joints are telegraphing through the veneer.
Definitely mechanical.
My thought here is cause is possibly from glue bleed based on the wood veneer being placed on the backer material.
There are very small bars that suspend the veneer (similar to plastic laminate), above the backer. Once the contact adhesive is ready, the bars are removed to evenly set the veneer onto the backer material.
Is it possible that it is from the packaging?
Looking at the pictures these look like paint grade doors and not meant to be stained.
Stains grade don’t usually have the un-uniform finish as seen at the top.
The first thing I would ask is what did they cost?
I blew the photo up and although that did not really improve the resolution, I notice that what appears to be a fairly sharp line, it wavers as if following a contour on the surface of the wood. Pretty evident when magnified. You probably have a better photo in the original, might be a clue as to the cause.
All theories sound plausible. But after enlarging , it looks as though the veneer has separated at a join. Possibly due to heat,storage, etc. But as stated once the dark stain was applied it enhanced the blemished area. Unfortunate but could be filled, sanded and re stained
But I would bring the Mfg. In on this
It is a compression line. take a damp cloth, apply it to the area, let dry. This will raise the grain and relieve the compressed wood veneer. Sand and then re-stain just the effected area with a rag rubbing with the grain to feather in the stain and look like the rest of the door.
Im thinking that it is a paint grade veneer. Is it listed as a stain/architectural grade door? If it is a paint grade then that would be the reason.
If they were field finished I would say check how the person who stained them. It could have been the surface of the table they had the door on leaving marks. If its on all three doors and two came from stock and one not then I would say that would be the only common denominator.
Looks to me like what is commonly called “chatter” when all of the knives on the head haven’t been set accurately to the same height. Usually all doors in a batch will show this defect unless the doors were mixed from different batches processed on different machines or the head was replaced to resharpen the knives.
Looking closely there are several other less pronounced stripes below on both of the doors. No amount of sanding and staining will ever smooth this out. Light sanding will remove the surface stain, but the veneer is to thin to sand out the stain in the grain.
Check the cleaning crew’s height of the mop handle on their cart.I have seen this damage caused when the cleaning crew pushes past the door and the end of the mop handle drags across the door.