Trimming Doors

[andrewpreece]

Have you considered getting rising hinges and leaving the door the height it is?

Andy.

[Jeff Allen]

I need to trim a few mm off the bottom edge of some doors around the house in order to stop them scraping on the carpet. They are of the wooden hollow core variety. Do I just use an ordinary woodworking plane for this task? Is there much skill needed?

Jeff

[Ian Stirling]

No. You'll want to clamp the edges with scrap timber, as otherwise you may lose splinters off the edges.

[TonyK]

Any watch out for the staples used to hold the wood to the MDF. It'll ruin a decent plane.

[Frank Erskine]

Plane inwards from each corner to avoid splitting the rather weak edges of the door.

Remember to draw a line to which you wish to plane, preferably on both faces of the door, to keep your cut nice and square.

[Paper2002AD]

All of the above, but if you have a few to do, buy a cheap electric plane

[Chris J Dixon]

Be careful that there is enough material left to trim, if it has been previously trimmed close to the limit, you may have to take material off the top instead, and move the hinges.

Chris

[stuart noble]

Use a jig with a circular saw. No skill required, quick, and deadly accurate.

[Paul Mc Cann]

.........and one frayed edge.

Besides if the amount to be removed is 3mm or less it can be hard to control a circular saw

[Ian Stirling]

stuart noble

[stuart noble]

The frayed edge is neither here nor there if the cut is accurate and 90 degs to the face. If it tears up badly, then IME either the wood is damp, or the blade is blunt.

The saw is not hard to control at all. The inner edge of the baseplate follows the jig so you cannot overcut, and the weight of the saw is always on the workpiece. Even a tapered cut 3mm down to zero is a doddle, really it is. The method has often been described on here but I wouldn't bother buying anything fancy to achieve it when you can just pin or clamp a batten. Once you know the distance from tooth edge to baseplate edge (and ideally cut youself a "spacer" of that size for future use), you can get pretty amazing accuracy.

[Paul Mc Cann]

or more likely, one is working on the average panel door with el cheapo ply and egg box inner core. Been there, done that.

Beg to differ. Despite the presence of the batten if the saw deviates at all it can be the devil to get it to start cutting to the line again when trying to remove a small amount. Possibly/probably the quality of the saw will have an effect i.e. B Q against Festo or similar

[stuart noble]

With the whole of the baseplate following the batten, it's difficult to imagine how a sharp blade would wander. By the time the blade starts cutting it's already been following the batten for 4" or so, and should be perfectly parallel to it. If it did wander, you'd simply start the cut again. The only problem I've had is that on some saws you have to lift the guard a fraction to get the cut started.