[a/s] Tambour Door Info

["Wally Dragich" <wdragich@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Today I became an "expert" on A/S Tambour doors.

As I mentioned in a previous post, we found a pile of tambour doors on a 
heap from an A/S which was totally gutted. We took many apart and had a 
chance to have an intimate look on how they work and why some get stiff, 
which causes breakage.

The first observation, is that the doors are not wood, but in-fact masonite 
with a printed wood-grain finish.

The slats which make up the door are glued to a white cloth. The door is 
then set into hard plastic rails which guides and curles the doors. The 
aluminum handle is grimped to the end slats.

Masonite is a compressed paper-like material which is extremely absorbent 
and damaged by water. First water will make it swell, then it will begin to 
crumble.

The tambour doors on our 72 O'lander are in various stages of deterioration. 
The ones in the kitchen area are the worst. I was very happy to find good 
ones in the garbage.

I think the tambours get damaged when people use water or windex spray which 
gets into the track and edges of the doors. This causes the swelled material 
to become stiff when opening and closing. The additional force needed 
eventually make them fall apart.

I also think that some people make the mistake of using oil or WD40 in an 
attempt to fix the problem, but it only makes matters worse by additional 
swelling.

I believe a good fix is to remove the 4 screws holding the complete assembly 
and gently coax the door & plastic track out. If you are not carefull, you 
may break the thin arborite border facing.

After removal, clean the plastic track with soap & water and dry. DO NOT USE 
LIQUID of any type on the masonite tambour door edges. I would suggest 
sanding the back edge of the doors with a medium or fine sandpaper in order 
to remove material that has swelled. For lubrication, you might try dry 
graphite spray applied to the plastic track, but be carefull, its a pitch 
black material and you could make a mess.

In the future, when cleaning the doors, do not spray liquid on the doors but 
only use a damp cloth. Stay away from the edges.

I think that a 1972 model like ours has also been affected by humidity over 
the years.

I hope this helps anyone with tambour doors in need of a fix.

Wally