cutting down a moulded MDF door

[Whitling2k]

Now then!

I am cutting about 6" off each side, and angling the top to about 45deg of a moulded MDF door to make it fit a wee cupboard door opening I have built.

I'm cutting an existing door down because I have 4 spare, I'm from Yorkshire and I want it in the same style as all my other doors.

Which is working quite well, apart from I hadn't imagined the door to be moulded. I thought the grooves would be machined into the faces - so when I cut out the old frame to push back between the mdf layers - it worked well down the sides, but the top and bottom are sort of toothed. [the pics will help explain it]

So I cut the old frame into smaller pieces to fit between the mouldings - which has also worked well, and my door is strong enough after plenty of glue and clamping (and the internals of the door are filled with glued honeycomb, which provides most of the strength and stiffness.

Realistically - I can't be bothered to cut such small fiddly pieces of wood to fit between the mouldings - so I am thinking of using some sort of filler. I had envisaged something like mixing saw dust and epoxy resin, so I'm left with something I can plane, sand and paint.

Any ideas on how I can fill the gaps?

 

[OwainDIYer]

Any old sandable/paintable wood filler from Ye Poundee Shoppee.

When I ran out of Ye Poundee Shoppee filler I used some leftover multifinish plaster mixed up with some PVA and emulsion paint in the mix.

Ideally though you'd cut the door undersize and put a lip of batten along the edge.

 

[endecotp]

First glue in a small piece of wood of approximately the right size, then fill the smaller gaps. Two-part wood filler will give the best results.

Would have been better to make it undersize, and then add a lipping. Could you now cut it back a few mm and add fit lipping?

 

[Whitling2k]

Cool - thanks for the tips. I have made it 6mm too wide to plane back to a smooth surface - so in theory, I could easily trim 5mm or so from each edge.

By lip, do you mean attach a thin strip of wood around the outside of the door? How would that work with the grooves?

 

[endecotp]

I would possibly use a router to cut the grooves in the lip. Not sure exactly how that would work with the 45 degree angle, though.