Making a Square a Circle

As you may remember, a few weeks ago I made the surprising discovery that several of the bedroom doors had less than optimal doorknob holes (like the one above).  It made replacing the original "attractive" 70s brass doorknobs with the new brushed nickel ones problematic, to say the least.

So we purchased one of these and got to work. 

The problem?  Since there was already a hole in the door, how would we use the hole saw bit to round it off to make an actual circle.

After some trial and error (OK, more along the lines of the saw jumping and skipping around the hole and me using an interesting selection of words not to be used in polite company), Hubs and I figured out how to make the process work smoothly. 

Here's are the steps we worked out.

1.Place the door across your saw horses.  You will be drilling through the door, so you don't want to put it on a solid surface.

2.  After placing the correct sized hole saw on your drill, start the bit spinning.

3.  Bracing yourself, place the edge of the bit at an angle at the edge of the circle you want to drill. Create a small groove.

 

4.  Slowly rotating the angle of the hole saw, repeat step 3 on another side of the circle.

5.  Repeat step 4 on the third side of the hole.

6.  At this point, using the grooves you created earlier as a guide, straighten the hole saw and applying pressure begin to work the saw through the door.  The grooves should keep the saw in line until you get further into the door.

7.  Eventually, you will make it through the door.

Now you have the correct sized hole for your doorknob.

I do have to be totally honest, I did have some skipping on my door (which caused some rather colorful language to be uttered during this endeavor.) . 

However, it wasn't anything that a little sandable wood filler and a coat of white semi-gloss paint didn't fix.

And this

looks so much better than this.

If the instructions weren't clear or you have any other tips, please let us know. 

I am sure we will run into more doors that need some "rounding off" as we continue to replace our doorknobs.