Sodding Tambour Doors!

[widu13]

Frustration time. We've loaded up our camper and had a day trip out. On our return ALL 3 of the horizontally tambour doors have been lodged shut with "stuff" wedged inside them. One I've managed to open, and can see that the door cassette when open leaves a lovely 3" gap for various items to lodge inside.

My question; is there such a thing as tambour door "protection" i.e. something that fastens in front of the cassette to stop stuff entering it, or is is a case of making up a 90 degree wall with ply and furniture board fixing it in place? I know I "could" blank off the section from the cassette but that would lose a lot of space.

Ideas gratefully received! I have a inspection camera winging it's way to me to see just WTF is stopping the remaining 2 doors opening which won't open any more than 1/2"

 

[Phil_G]

Would some full-lock circling in a car-park shift it all back?

 

[widu13]

It's out! A 2 litre bottle of water jammed in the cassette. I nearly broke my phone putting it into the gap and bending it enough to get the photo. I fashioned a 1/2" wide (any wider it wouldn't fit- so it was not very strong) strip of perpex and heat bent it at 90 degrees and after 1/2hr I came up with the idea that gravity needed to help so I ran the van down a nearby 30 degree bank and slammed the anchors on hard! It did not free it but it loosened it enough that the perpex could shift it slighty...it opened it about 2 1/2" and the missus got her hand in and had a good rummage around...sorry; she moved the bottle enough to open the door fully.

Moral of the story; don't have unprotected horizontal opening tambour doors and if you do, don't put anything in the cupboard!

IMG_20190422_212343[1]

• widu13
• 22 Apr 2019

2 litre bottle of water stuck in open tambour door cassette.

 

[Sabre]

And have a missus with dainty little hands...

 

[Fish]

I have seen a 4/6" piece of black drainage pipe cut and modded, then hot glues on the rim of cassette

 

[andys]

I have a horizontal tambour on one of my cupboards and have never had a problem, but I don’t think the mechanism is exposed, I’ll have a look tomorrow.

 

[widu13]

I have seen a 4/6" piece of black drainage pipe cut and modded, then hot glues on the rim of cassette

Great idea Fish, cheers bud. Furniture blocks fixed top and bottom and then glued to that might just do the job. Project for the weekend.

If anyone is building horizontal openings in cupboards; do yourself a favour and build them with cassette spiral protection from the get go, or just put doors on them in the first place!

 

[widu13]

Update. This may not be of help to most but hopefully will be useful to someone...

The radius of drain pipe was to acute, however I do have some standard guttering. A sectional length (cut to size cupboard floor to ceiling) was the perfect radius to fit around the most acute part of the spiral cassette to go 1/2 way around the spiral. Another length cut to length and trimmed to approx. 2/3rds width on the table saw and one side slightly straightened by using a heat gun was also a more or less perfect for the front 1/2 of the spiral cassette which straightens out.

In my camper; one end of the spiral is attached directly the the floor (or ceiling) and the other is sat on top of furniture board and neatly edged which stops the easy application of the guttering. I had a small nightmare finding glue as the spirals cassettes are soft plastic and the guttering hard plastic . Hot gun glue didn't work, neither did plastic pipe solvent weld glue, neither did Sticks Like Sh*t (which doesn't and had not gone off after 24 hrs) but Everbuild Stixall (do yourself a favour and buy the small tube) did work although, I was a bit messy and the guttering needs to be propped in place.

Do NOT use too much it will spill onto the tambour doors and be a PITA to remove just a small bead at each end will suffice. Although I was messy applying it as I used a full sized tube and gun (use the small tube); it doesn't look too bad and it is solid once dry. Nothing is going to force it's way into the spiral cassette.

 

[Fish]

Nice little fix..
I would say there is a market for 3D printing these..

 

[widu13]

Anyone please feel free to use my interpretation of @Fish 's idea (thank bud). Why on earth protection for the spiral cassettes isn't done as standard just boggles my mind.

 

[Fish]

If I was to buy a door kit, I would look at a solution before assembly.. obviously this is now I have experienced this problem.

 

[Bryn23]

This is one of the major reasons, i decided not to do Tambour Doors in my build, as a cabinetmaker we have space to make provisions to hide the tambour as space isn't as valuable as it is in a Camper.

I'd imagine routing a rebate slot next to the tambour door rebate and using a vertically flexible Corflute would help before assembly for protection from door jamming.

although it doesn't help you guys at this point in time

 

[Bryn23]

Just a though. you can get tambour guides that don't need to be rebated as well, cut those to size with the corflute and you should be able to protect that internal tambour entrance edge from getting jammed.

 

[widu13]

I really cannot understand why anyone would want to fit open spiral cassettes, its just asking for trouble!

 

[boxelder]

I've got a jammed vertical tambour door. Without removing the kitchen pod, I can't access it......... Ideas gratefully received, but may just keep driving around and hope it clears.

 

[Sabre]

Feel your pain here. I put a foot into mine last summer... don't ask!
So it jammed closed. Was able to lift it slightly and with rear access, get at the roll. The individual vanes slipped out of the track at the roll. If you can get to it, move it carefully to a point where you can force the vanes back into the track. You should be able to loosen it off a little but removal just seems to introduce bigger problems.
The vanes will bend and possibly split a little but gentle pressure should get it back again. You'll probably have several vanes so easy goes until it moves freely.
Good luck, it's a PITA!

 

[DXX]

It’s happened to me, I now use a small box to secure condiments and other small items.
I was just considering that a brush strip that would normally be used as a draught excluder on a door would do the job.

 

[widu13]

I've got a jammed vertical tambour door. Without removing the kitchen pod, I can't access it......... Ideas gratefully received, but may just keep driving around and hope it clears.

Will it open at all? Even a few mm? If so a wire coat hanger and a fishing expedition! If not a new tambour if you don't want to dismantle (I wouldn't).

 

[Mike23864]

Not specifically for this problem but I got one of these boroscopes to help thread wires through various places and see into dark crevices without having to contort myself. It’s brill

 

[widu13]

Got something very similar after my debacle Although I often find myself rotating my head to match the camera's unintentional rotation!