If I have a regular front door that I find ugly, and instead want to cover it with a smooth board, what should I use? The board doesn't need to contribute any rigidity, and I want the board to be as thin as possible, preferably 2-4 mm. What should I use, MDF, plywood, panel, other?
Outside or inside? I had a door where the previous owner replaced the outside with 4mm plywood. It wasn't pretty, and I replaced the door as it was falling apart. What is the problem with the current door? Can't it be painted? It will be problematic to keep such a thin sheet as 4 mm flat if you can't glue the entire surface.
Gluing the entire surface is probably no problem, should I use regular wood glue or PL400 or something else? The problem is that I want to find a cheap front door, and most cheap front doors have ugly router-carved patterns and I would then replace the entire front with something that resembles the house's other doors. Very few cheap front doors are completely smooth.
For the door I built, I used polyurethane glue. It tolerates moisture fairly well. Regular wood glue (PVAC) is available in both indoor and outdoor quality, but it still has quite limited moisture resistance. The problem is applying pressure across the entire surface. If you have access to a veneer press, it's no problem. Otherwise, you can place the newly glued door in an airtight bag and connect it to a vacuum pump. That's what I did, and if it's sealed tightly enough, it provides sufficient pressure. You may want to place a chipboard between the laminated board and the vacuum bag to prevent any irregularities from penetrating the board.
Thanks for the tip, it's probably just right since most purchased doors are built with HDF. Do I screw or glue HDF? Where can I find HDF?, neither Byggmax, Cheapy nor Beijer have any on their websites.isolde said: