Warped Doors

So, we came to conclusion that the elevator doors that we've had on the set are warping. Since our doors aren't a standard size due to it being built for puppets, I made the doors out of pine 1x2 and 1/8 inch MDF. They're about 5 feet tall and 18 inches feet wide.

Since I have to build them again, are there any precautions I should take to keep them from warping again? Maybe using a different wood (or even a different material) would be better? I think I read somewhere that the movie-style doors were skinned in foamcore to keep them super light. Has anyone tried this? I was wondering if I could make the entire door out of 1-inch styrofoam insulation and then skin it in fpamcore.

Thoughts?

Steve

 

Don't use the anti-matter finish this time!

 

Plywood is less likely to warp. However, you still have to watch it in trans-warp situations.

 

We used pocket closet doors for the operating bridge doors. They haven't warped yet.

 

How rigid do they need to be? Why not pieces of thin lexan or some other kind of plastic what are slightly flexible?

 

I think we may have found an option that will work. One of the problems we had was that it's a doorway that's 2 feet wide and about 4 feet tall. My thought was that a commercial door wouldn't work because they're hollow. If you cut the bottom and the side off to make it fit, you have two gaping holes in the cut ends. I felt like my only option was to make the door from scratch -- which meant they weren't really square and the pine I used warped over the last couple of years.

But then I started thinking about bi-fold closet doors. They come in a 36 inch version consisting of two 18-inch doors hinged together. What if I took those hinges off, and used them on wither side of the door? All I'd have to do is lop off the bottoms and according to their website, you can just take the bottom piece of wood, strip the MDF off it and then glue it in the hole, creating a door that won't lose its integrity.

Since the doors I made are 16 inches by 4 feet, that seems like as close as I'm going to get. It's also fairly cheap (about 35 bucks), so even if it doesn't work, I haven't broken the bank.

I'll keep you posted!

 

Cabinet doors would also work.

 

Unless they require tensile strength you could make them out of foam core, which is very light and easy to move.

 

Foam core is easily damaged, and will warp under humidity and heat.

 

I think that's where we went wrong with ours. The set was down for about 6 months and the two doors leaned against the wall -- they may have warped slightly at that point, but nothing that was overly noticeable. Last weekend, we took them down and painted them int he hot sun. When we put them back up, they actually warped where the two door meet in the middle -- so the seam looks like this: ()

Not fun -- so I'd iike to avoid this next time.