Overcoming interior door bodgery - what would you do?

[pidgeonpost]

The previous owner of our 1960's house replaced all the original interior doors with thinner 35mm ones. He didn't bother to reposition the door stops, which means there's a throbbing great gap between door and stop, and the doors strain at the hinges.
The original doors were hung using 4" steel butts, he hung the new doors using 3" hinges fitted into the 4" rebates. He bodges filler into the vacant spaces, and it looks a total mess.
The room is up for redecoration, so I'm going to rehang the door and reposition the stops. Trouble is, what to do about the hinges. My original idea was just to clean out the original rebates and hange the door using 4" butts, but it looks like the leaf of a 4" butt is too wide for a 35mm door.
Alternatively I could reposition the 3" hinges and make good.
What would you do - apart from knee-capping the bloke who did this originally?

 

[foxhole]

Remove doors, fill hinge rebates completely with wood filler and when dry recut and hang.

 

[pidgeonpost]

Thanks for that. I've got a couple of types of filler including some Ronseal wood filler. Both say that the filler can be drilled and screwed once hardened so let's hope that's true. If not then I'll be back to shifting the 3" hinges or reverting to 4" to suit the door lining and enlarging the rebates in the door. By the way - checked a couple of other doors yesterday and the 4" hinge will fit by the look of it. The door's 35mm and the hinge leaf is 30mm. Must clean my glasses.

 

[Space cat]

I always fill unwanted hinge rebates with real wood glued in with PVA wood glue. It's not as easy as using filler but I find it gives a better result.

If you can't find any wood the right thickness, go for something a little thicker and either chisel a bit more out of the rebate or plane the finished job flush with the frame - or both. I always cut slightly oversize then sand down the ends for a dead fit. After the glue's set, I trim the rest down with plane, chisel and/or sandpaper. When it's all done and painted, you can hardly see that anything has ever been there.

You can also chisel out new rebates with ease. In fact it's just like working with real wood.

PS: If the rebate extends into round-edged architrave, as it usually does in our house, I fill out the architrave with a piece of dowel.

 

[pidgeonpost]

Thanks Space Cat. Going to give it a go tomorrow and see how it goes. At the moment the jury is out whether to go for filler or wood! I'll just have to see how the job shapes up.....