It was in the 2000 big-screen blockbuster “Charlie’s Angels” that one angel, Alex, played by Lucy Liu, displayed her lack of baking skills. To woo her boyfriend, Alex whipped up blueberry muffins. The baked goods turned out to be better weapons than enticers. One of the angels hurled one across a room, only to have it lodge in a hollow-core door. The other angels appropriately dubbed Alex’s quick breads “Chinese Fighting Muffins.”
Muffins aside, if the doors in your home are hollow and you have kids, chances are you’ve had to, or someday will have to, repair a hole in a door. Besides its unsightly appearance, such a hole can be embarrassing.
Most post-World War II homes have hollow-core doors. The core of the door usually consists of pieces of cardboard crisscrossed on end for rigidity and modest acoustic value. The door is then finished on both sides with a one-eighth-inch layer of veneer plywood or hardboard.
The method used to repair a hole in a hollow-core door depends upon whether the door is painted or stained. Patching a painted door is easier because the paint does a better job of concealing the repair. That doesn’t mean, however, that patching a stained door is impossible. And although a replacement hollow-core door isn’t particularly expensive, replacing one (mortising for hinges and drilling holes for the hardware) can be complicated.
Both of these repair methods can be used to repair a wood-veneer door that is stained ... with one exception. Instead of priming the patch and painting the entire door, spot-prime the patch with a primer tinted to match the stain color. Use a small artist’s brush to “faux finish” the patch to match the grain and stain of the existing finish. Also, wood filler can be used in place of spackling compound when patching a wood-veneer door. Wood filler, however, won’t take stain exactly like the wood around it.
If a door is badly damaged or you aren’t happy with your repair, apply a new veneer to the door. This is called “re-skinning” the door. Simply pop the door off the hinges and lay it on a couple of saw horses in your garage or workshop. Remove the hardware and hinges, rough-sand the damaged face, and apply contact cement to both the face of the door and the back side of the veneer. Allow the contact cement to become tacky and then place the veneer over the door. Cover the surface with some heavy books to allow the adhesive to set up, then trim the excess with a utility knife or pin router. Sand the edge smooth and stain to match the rest of the door.