When I purchased Shaneeda, several of her basement doors were in bad shape.
In RV/motorhome parlance, the basement doors cover the storage area under the living space. These basement doors consist of an aluminum frame made of angle, channel, and such and an aluminum sheet “cover” or face. The face had come loose on most of the them. The handle/lock mechanism is mounted in the face and attaches to the latches on the frame. That was about all that was holding several of them together.
To repair, I used Gorilla glue. I applied some between each face and frame and used several clamps to hold it all together. This is worked well on all the doors but one.
The one trouble basement door had been “repaired” by the previous owner. Sadly, the job wasn’t all that great. The remains of whatever glue was used was all over the place and preventing the face from making good contact with the frame. So, a better repair was necessary.
I removed the face entirely from the frame and then proceeded to thoroughly clean both parts. This involved a LOT of chipping and scraping of the old material. I used a combination of tools – putty knives, utility knife, screwdriver, pocket knife, etc… Of course, not damaging the exterior finish has to be a priority. Once it was finally clean, I used rubbing alcohol to prep for some new adhesive.
The Gorilla glue had worked well for me and I like the fact that it expands a little bit to fill voids. However; I was out. I did have a tube of 5 minute epoxy so I gave that a shot.
Of course, five minutes is not very long to apply, properly align the face on the frame, and get all the clamps attached. Nonetheless, I was reasonably successful.
So, the frame is re-attached and looks pretty good. However; I am not sure that the epoxy will be a good solution as it feels very rigid. When I move the door, I can hear some small cracking sounds. I suspect the epoxy will fail in short order and I’ll have to repeat the process using Gorilla glue.
Oh well, live and learn!
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