Old timer showed me a trick with a hand plane on a sticky door

I was fighting with an interior door that kept sticking at the top last week. A guy named Pete who's been framing since the 80s walked over and grabbed my block plane. He took off maybe 1/64th of an inch from the hinge side, not the top like I was about to do. Said most people plane the wrong spot and it just makes the gap worse. Any of you ever had a door that was tricky to figure out which side to trim?

2 comments

2 Comments

finleycooper13d ago

Pete's right about planing the hinge side. That's where the issue usually is on older doors that have settled. If you take off the top you're just fighting the sag and making the gap look worse. Takes a steady hand though, easy to take too much off.

eva_thompson1013d ago

Yeah I've done this on a few old victorian doors and the trick is to mark the binding spot with chalk before you take the hinges off. Did you find the hinge screws were stripped at all or was it just the wood giving way?