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Broken Breadbox Rolldoor

22K views 7 replies 6 participants last post by  flhtcu 
#1 ·
Our mid-1990s oak kitchen has a breadbox with a roll-up door consisting of thin (3/16"-ish) horizontal wood slats. They appear to be backed by hardboard. The end (handle) piece is 1 1/2 x w x 1/2" oak and has broken off. The hardboard backing has horizontal grooves every 1/2" that go most of the way through. This may be the way the door can roll around the curve. Beyond that, I haven't a clue how to fix it. My only thought is using a piano hinge but I'll have to add another 1/2" piece of wood next to the end piece for something to screw into. Whatever I do I'll have to do it standing on my head 'cause it doesn't look like I can get anything apart to remove the door from its 'track'. I can provide a photo if I can figure out how to make it fit the chatroom attachment rules. Thoughts? Thanks in advance.
 
#2 ·
Your best bet would be to remove the cabinet.these tambour doors usually are installed form the top back or bottom into the groove.In the old days the slats were glued to a heavy canvas but I have not dealt with any as new as yours.
Still don't see how you could repair it without removing the cabinet first.Pics might help.
 
#3 · (Edited)
Broken Breadbox Door

Tnx Mako1. The grooved track is routed into the sidewalls and there is no way to access it without disassembling the kitchen cabinet assembly-which does not appear easily done and I am told is not in the cards. I also thought of perhaps backing the door in strips of heavy duty tape. If I've done any of this right, attached are a couple of pics.
 
#4 ·
I had a similar issue with ours, lenaitch, and the cabinet design was very similar. What I did was to Gorilla Glue the door baseplate with the handle to the first slat, then used put stops in the back end of the runway slot to keep the door from going quite high enough to bend that glued union. It only caused a couple of inches loss in the height of the opening, which we lived with very easily.
 
#5 ·
The old way of making roll up doors was to glue all the slats to a piece of canvas type material. I don't know how yours was done but new piece of material glued across the seem would repair it. It would easy if the whole could be removed. I can't tell how difficult that would be from the images.

perhaps just glue it to the bottom of the existing door first. That way you could clamp it using an other piece of wood to and some clamps to squeeze it. use wax paper in between. Then with the cloth hanging glue the handle section on the same way.

Heck piece of duct tape would do OK for a short time.
 
#6 ·
Thanks all. I have convinced myself that the door is not removable. I'm probably going to go with gluing the end/handle piece to the rest of it - I can live with loosing an inch or two of opening. I may even try Gorilla Tape and see how good it is. Cheers all.
 
#7 ·
I have worked on a couple of "Hoosier Cabinets" with these type "Tambour" doors. Yes, some dis-assembly is required to properly repair one of these doors, but--I like "joed"'s idea of gluing on some canvas to the bottom slat of the existing door, allowing this to dry really good then gluing on the slat with the handle. Don't worry about the glue becoming so hard that the canvas will not have flexibility, it will be stiff at first but with gentle nudging it will become flexible. Good Luck
 
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