Planing moulded hollow 6 panel doors

[markwm]

I have to fit some interior doors, the frames are a variety of sizes. In some cases I will need to take off around 23mm of the left/right sides of a 762mm wide door.

We got some cheap doors from b&q and I soon found out that the amount that you can plain from the sides is very small. I says 4mm on the pack but I figured this was conservative. It was but there still isn't enough wood at the sides to plain off 23mm......

I even looked at the solid pine doors, the pack of those said only 5mm could be taken off which doesn't quite make sense to me. Those doors are £20 more too.

So, do moulded doors vary from place to place? ie, some have more solid wood at the sides than others?

 

[TicklyT]

Faced with a similar problem a while ago, I cut about 1 1/2" off the hinge side of a door, cutting the whole stile off.

I cleaned the bits of ply off both sides of the stile , trimmed the rails and re-glued three sides of the stile before tapping it back in between the two skins, collapsing the cardboard 'eggbox' to make room for it as it went in, clamped it up and let it set, and then finished it to size.

I could have gone out and bought a door the right size, but this door was free

A moulded door is more awkward. I don't know if you could trim the lock block to get the stile back in.

Cheap 'solid wood' doors are made up of odds and ends of timber glued together, then veneered over. Once you've planed off the veneer, there's no saying what you'll find.....

 

[awbcm]

This guide may give you an idea how a modern door is constructed and where the 4 & 5mm planning allowance (lipping) comes from.

Have you considered using a 1981 mm x 711 mm door? If I am reading your post correctly you are planning to remove 23mm from each side, which would mean you are reducing a 762 door width by 46mm giving you a door width of 716.

You also need to consider when reducing the width of a door is fitting the lock / latch and the look of the door etc. i.e. the stile with may be to narrow once trimmed and look a right mess.

These other guides may also be of interest.

Door lining

And

Internal door lining refurbishment (file size 8MB)

 

[markwm]

I didn't know you could get 711mm, these don't seem to be stocked by the major DIY stores. My frame opening are as follows:

780x2005
725x1915
770x1990
720x1890

 

[awbcm]

The major DIY stores are not the be all and end all. There are companies that are called builders merchants who can supply specialist building materials like doors and windows.

www.singerdoors.co.uk/doorsizes.html

 

[bsr]

There will probably be a company called Howdens somewhere near you. They stock a wide range of door sizes fairly cheaply - you'll probably have to haggle on price though.

Have you considered that you may have metric sized doors?