Hi everyone.
I'm about to replace our lounge to hall internal doors. They are double doors, but not standard size.
Getting tailored doors will cost £600, which is too much.
Is it possible to buy 2 normal size doors and use a router to adjust the size. I'm talking of less than an 1" of each side.
I'm presuming that the quality of wood will make a difference. Also, is there a problem in using a router when cutting horizontal and vertical, meaning cutting against the grain?
Any help appreciated.
Unless you're completely aware of stile composition and hardware requirements, your best bet is to get undersized doors and fur them out using proper glue and joinery...to avoid compromising door integrity and avoiding any hardware installation problems.
a saw will probably do a better job for you than a router.
P.S. If you're just thinking of taking off 1/2", or so, for the T-Astragal, the "normal" doors pose no problem. Difficulty arises, for both hinging and hardware installation, when the fillet on the edge of a veneer door (often no more than 1/2") is substantially removed.
The tools of choice are circular saw for the gross cut and an electric door plane to perfect it:
When I was fitting some new internal doors, I put the new door on top of the old one and routed it to trim it to the same size. As the original door was fine with the door frame, it worked fine until I went over the lock area. The guide bearing dropped into the slot and left a nice indentation. That was bad enough but I did it with the next door too.
Providing the original doors are a good fit, you can do them easily the way I did, but just make sure that the guide bearing goes over the door and not over the lock.
Paul
Matt: why a router? Are the doors thicker than 1"? I'm not familiar with the router bits in the UK, but I guess a typical door would require two cuts - one from atop and another from below because the router bit would not be long enough to make a cut in a single pass (1"?).
Not a problem, but you have a greater chance of tear out when you cut against the grain.
I would not use a router to remove 1" from a door. Perhaps a table saw or circular saw would be easier?
Hey guys, thanks for the input.
A router was first choice as you can take off 6mm at a time (1/4") and slowly do a decent job. My only concern with using a circular saw was that it doesn't always give a true straight cut as the blade cuts slightly off angle.
Doors are about 1.5".
Router bit was to be a straight flush bit, like you use to cut kitchen worktops, I wouldn't use a bearing bit due to several cuts being required.
You'd be surprised. I've found that a router, with an upcut/downcut combo bit is awesome for door trimming.
Barry
One or both of the doors will need bevelling. The circular saw will handle that as well as the operator can. Clean the edge with a hand plane if you're just dabbling and wish, to some extent, to avoid a complete hack job.
I would think so, though if they're hollow-core doors you want to be absolutely certain you know how thick the internal stiles are.
I once picked up a pair of cheapo hollow-core doors that were 3" over-height for the closet they were going into, and the knowledgeable and helpful gentlemen at the orange box assured me the internal rails were plenty thick enough to have an inch and a half cut off the top and bottom. I'm sure you'll be as shocked as I was to find out they were quite wrong. The contractor I had doing some other work on the house showed me how to deal with this: chisel the veneer off the rails and glue them back into the doors.
Cut them with a saw.
Have a nice week...
Trent©
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