When purchasing a new door, the buyer receives a far from finished construction for installation. She has no places for installing loops, locks are not embedded. The buyer has the inevitable question - how to assemble the door frame.
You can use the services of professionals or mount the design yourself. To do this, prepare the tools and study the features of the technology.
Doors on the market are sold mainly complete with a box, but sometimes they need to be selected to each other.
For the most part, new doors do not fit in old boxes, either in size or in style. In this regard, it is required to completely change the previous design.
Door frame material selection
Now the market is dominated by products with a spectacular appearance and a low price, for example, from MDF - a composite of pressed fibers.
How to assemble a door frame from MDF so that it serves no worse than a wooden structure? The new material has many advantages, but it is important to dwell on the disadvantages. Despite the great strength, the box can be deformed if the door leaf is heavy. In addition, in a humid environment, MDF panels can peel off and also swell, leading to a violation of the geometry of the opening.
Despite the shortcomings, affordable cost, good mechanical properties and a wide range of MDF parts make them a priority, even when picking premium doors.
Necessary tools
Before assembling the door frame, first prepare the tools:
- hammer;
- a set of chisels;
- knife;
- roulette;
- square;
- hacksaw for metal or with small teeth;
- level with a plumb line;
- dowels, screws, hinges;
- miter box - a tool for cuts at certain angles;
- screwdrivers.
The work is greatly facilitated by the presence of a power tool: a screwdriver, a jigsaw, an electric drill, a perforator, and a milling cutter.
Doorway preparation
It is important to choose the right door for the width of the opening, so that subsequently there is less fitting work. The minimum clearance must be at least 15 mm on each side.
Before installation, the evenness of the opening is checked. It is measured in several places vertically and horizontally.
How to assemble the door frame of the interior door if the opening is too large? To do this, planks of the required width are packed around the perimeter or the space is laid with a brick.
Other options are glazing the opening, making the frame of wood or metal and plating it with drywall.
Door frame components
The box is made of timber and consists of fragments:
- looped bar and narthex;
- lintel (upper beam);
- threshold.
Thus, in order to assemble the door frame (it is equipped with a threshold only for a heavy canvas, used mainly at the entrance to the apartment), it is necessary to correctly connect its components.
For interior doors, thresholds are rarely set.
Door frame assembly methods
Assembly is done very carefully so as not to damage the decorative coatings. Even one slight chip or scratch spoils the appearance of the structure.
To install the doors in the box, hinges are required. In interior designs, two are enough, and for the entrance often a third is installed.
The main difficulty in assembling the box is the correct execution of cuts and the connection of a horizontal beam with vertical ones. Their profiled structure creates difficulties for beginners. The installer must fit all the elements exactly in size. Before assembling the door frame, you should choose the installation technology. The beam is attached in several ways.
Stud connection
The most durable and reliable, but at the same time the most difficult is a spike connection. To do this, in the joints of the bars, according to their thickness, grooves and ridges are made. Here you need a manual router and the ability to use it. The connection is made without fasteners, but many craftsmen make additional reinforcement with galvanized nails.
It doesn’t matter what detail a groove or tenon is made of. In any case, a rigid connection is provided.
A milling cutter is a tool for professionals and it is not practical to purchase it for installing even several doors. When we assemble the door frame with our own hands, the most affordable way is to dock at an angle of 45 0 or 90 0 .
Even a beginner can do the assembly at right angles if he correctly performs all the operations.
How to assemble an interior door frame with a dock 45 0
At the junction of the horizontal and vertical timber, cuts are made. Preliminarily, measurements are taken several times so as not to err in the calculations. Particularly precisely, it is necessary to adjust the horizontal beam in order to correctly select the gap of 3-4 mm and the width of the door. The racks can subsequently be sawn off from below after assembly of the box, as they are made with a margin of length. After cutting, the joined surfaces are aligned with a chisel.
The fastening of the beam is usually done with screws, at an angle of 45 0 . To prevent the wood from breaking, holes are made under them with a drill, the diameter of which should be less than that of the core of the self-tapping screw. The drilling depth is made less than the length of the fastener so that the connection is reliable. One joint requires two screws on one side. You can add another in the middle, on the other side of the corner.
How to assemble a door frame with a joint 90 0
The assembly method is best for beginners. First of all, the door leaf is measured for compliance with a rectangular shape. It is often observed that one side is slightly different in size from the other. This deviation must be taken into account when sawing racks. Also checked are the cuts from the ends of the timber, which should be strictly at an angle of 90 0 . Workpieces may come from the factory with an uneven cut.
The connection of the horizontal bar with the vertical ones is also performed by self-tapping screws.
Verify Connections
Checking is done by placing the box on a flat horizontal surface and applying it on top of the door leaf. If it comes in with a small gap, then the assembly is done correctly.
The lower ends of the racks are filed, as they must rest against the floor. The horizontalness of the floor covering in the doorway is pre-checked. Deviations should be considered when sawing up racks.
Important! The blanks are cut from the side of the veneer to prevent its peeling.
Hinge installation
Before installing the door, you need to choose the side where it will open. Depending on this, loops of a certain type are selected - right or left. The canvas for attaching loops is selected more massive, without defects and cracks. The place of their installation is marked at a distance of 15-25 cm from the door end. The canopies are separated into a large part for a box and a small one for a door leaf. Then the loop is applied to the end of the door and is encircled with a pencil, and then with a knife. Similarly, make markings on the box. At the same time, the door leaf is attached to the box and the coincidence of marks under the hinges is checked.
The edges of the door leaf and hinges are combined, avoiding distortions. The hinges should be towards opening the door. When marking, it is unacceptable to confuse the top and bottom of the door. It depends on how it will be installed after fixing the loops. If the door has glass, their location should also be considered.
Using a chisel and a hammer, a place is cut out under the hinges to a depth of 3-5 mm so that they enter at the same level with the wooden surface. Seats for fittings are performed with special accuracy and accuracy. Then loops are applied, self-tapping screws are marked and screwed. The marks should coincide with the centers of the holes so as not to split the tree when screwing the fasteners. To prevent loop tightening with self-tapping screws, pencil marks are additionally marked with an awl.
By applying a ruler, the correct fit of the loop is checked. When bulging, the platform under it deepens, but not more than the required level. If the hinges are installed correctly, the wings should open at 180 0 . The load on the door must not exceed the established one. Usually it is 50 kg.
Installing the box in the doorway
At the moments that describe how to properly assemble the door frame, the work does not end. It still needs to be installed so that the door opens and closes well. To do this, the box is carefully installed in the opening and temporarily fixed with pieces of packaging cardboard or polystyrene. The level checks the verticality of the loop bar. Then wooden wedges are cut.
They are installed under the hinges. In the upper corners, these parts are also clogged. To prevent the box from shifting from opposite sides, two wedges are clogged with sharp parts superimposed on each other. The positions of the sidewall and lintel are checked by level, since displacements during wedging are possible. The box should be aligned with the room wall. Wedges should not protrude.
The issues of how to assemble and install the door frame, as well as hanging the door leaf are solved together, since everything is a single structure.
The door frame is attached to the wall on the dowels at the hinges. Wedges are also located there to prevent deformation of the beam. The mock party has not yet been exposed.
For greater stability, the exposed elements of the box must be partially foamed. The surfaces are pre-cleaned and wetted with water, which increases the adhesion of the foam by an order of magnitude.
Hinges are attached to the door leaf, after which it is mounted on a lining in the doorway. Then the door hinges are attached to the box beam: first from above, then from below.
The door is closed and a narthex is set with the help of wedges. When all the gaps are set, you should foam the box around the perimeter. At the same time, it is recommended to install spacers in it to prevent swelling of parts.
Conclusion
If you have the necessary tools, you can install the doors yourself. For this, it is most important to figure out how to assemble the door frame. If you correctly and consistently perform all installation operations, everything will work out.