it was above freezing! – The Vagabond Tabby

I hadda go get something done!

I didn’t think I’d be out very long, so I got more styrofoam insulation cut & installed quick & then hauled the old door inside, figuring that would be more than enough.

It's a really nice old door, the kind with the decorative inset panels. The middle panel is missing; I'm pretty sure there used to be glass there.

But it was pretty warm inside the tinker’s wagon, so I decided to keep going.

I measured the doorframe opening again & recorded the results as usual.

A still life arranged atop the old door: a green pen, a folding ruler, & a scrap of wood with the numbers '26 1/4' & '53 1/2' written upon it in green ink.

Time to cut!

There's a cutting guide clamped across the door, because I'm terrible at cutting in a straight line. Also there's a circular saw.

I got this far before I ran out of battery & also had to replace the blade because it was dull.

The circular saw is embedded in the wood, about five inches short of the far side of the door. There is sawdust EVERYWHERE. Including in my lungs. That part isn't in the picture.

But then … it’s REALLY thick wood.

The edge of the wood, with the cutting guide still clamped to it. There's a slot cut most of the way through the wood, but there's also still about a quarter inch of wood that the blade couldn't reach.

I decided that really was enough for one day & headed in, but you’ve met me, right? An hour or so later I was back outside with fresh battery & blade ready to go.

A really GOOD blade.

An old rusty metal door hinge, with a slot cut right the hell through the metal. Look, I was really excited the saw was working again, okay?

ANYWAY there was a lot of that for a while. It’s a pretty fiddly job, because the door is big, the doorway is MUCH smaller than usual, & it’s the kind of fancy door where the decorative panels are thinner than the rest of the wood. You don’t wanna just cut the door to the right height, because the edge will have those thin bits, it won’t look right, & it’ll be fragile as hell.

But I had a Plan!

The edges of the door were beat to hell anyway, so I cut an inch or so off the bottom. The top set of panels … just wasn’t gonna work, alas, because of the arch. So (as seen above) I cut that off too.

Which still left the door taller than it needed to be. I cut four more inches off the bottom, enough to include the bottom section of each panel, & then I cut the rest of the door down so that the four inch piece, when lined up with the rest, makes the door the right height.

The door is now much shorter! Also it's in two pieces; the bottom four inches is a separate piece from the rest, but it all lines up nicely.

Et voila!

The bottom corner of the door. The ruler's lined up so that it reads 53 1/2 inches right at the bottom of the door.

& then I had at with the flap wheel for a while, because it was there.

A section of the door, part of which has been sanded until it is ... less rough than the rest. Which is not to say that it has achieved actual smoothness.

Tomorrow (& possibly more than just tomorrow, because it’s gonna be Complicated) I’ll use more-or-less the same process to cut the whole thing to the right width. Then there’s gonna be SO MUCH SANDING, & eventually I get to glue the whole thing back together.

& THEN I get to nap!

This was posted originally to my Patreon, a little over a week ago.

If you want to see these posts sooner, & not incidentally help support me & my cats in our travels & such, the way to do that is to sign up as one of my Patrons for as little as a buck a month.

I’d REALLY like that.

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