Advice on cutting a door

[gtsukada]

So here is the situation, the master bedroom is getting both it's doors replaced with 2 new frech doors. Due to some bad measurements the new french doors do not close properly. I personally would like to cut off about 1" off the bottom, this would give it more than enough room to easily close. Does anybody have any advice on how to make the new doors fit?

 

[Prong]

Sounds like you already know what needs done. Be sure to reseal the bottom of the aail with some paint after you cut it to keep out moisture.

 

[Staples]

An inch is a lot but you can shave off the excess with a power sander. If you do cut it, use a manual saw, you don't want splinters and leave enough to sand after the cut. I have french doors but I do not like them because there is a rather big crack between mine so you have no sense of privacy.

 

[gtsukada]

thanks for the advice about cutting the doors. i'm still a bit scared i might screw it up, but who cares it's only a door.

 

[Armitage]

Some advice on cutting doors...
Since you say it's a french door, I'm assuming it's solid. Be careful cutting hollow-core doors, you can make a real mess of things if you take off to much.

If you have a table saw and at least one other person to help, it will do a nicer job then a hand-held circular saw. In either case use a good, sharp blade. Dull blades bind, burn, and are generally dangerous.

To help reduce splintering, score the the veneer where you are going to cut with a utility knife, run a piece of wide masking tape down the cut line on both side of the door. When you remove the tape, pull it at an angle toward the cut. Also, if you're using a table saw, consider making a zero-clearance insert for this cut. If you're using a circular saw, put a piece of scrap plywood under the cut line.

As somebody else said, make sure to reseal it when you're done.

 

[gtsukada]

the door is actually a hollor core door so i think splintering maybe a bit of a concern. i'm hoping the tape trick will do though, as far as resealing it how would you go about doing this?

 

[Armitage]

If it's a hollow core door, you need to be careful that you aren't cuting out to much of the solid wood piece on the bottom. If you cut all of it off you have an obvious problem, but even if you leave some there, you may have problems with the sheathing panels pulling away over time. An inch sounds like alot on a hollow core door. I'd take another look at if you really need to take that much.