[Closed] Trimming a door - advice required please

How much does a planer/workbench cost to rent...

If it's only one door, you probably better off getting a chippy to do it.

Did mine with a belt sander

It's 2 doors. £12 to rent a planer. Chippy would need to be booked in and would probably charge £50+ (I'm in London).

Did mine with a belt sander

I need to get 8mm off. Do you think I'd be better hiring a sander than a plane?

I did mine with a jigsaw. Circular saw would also be fine...

Measure once, cut twice. 😉

Jigsaw or circular saw would be the normal way of doing it. Planer or sander would work, but be slower, and more likely to be a bit uneven.

You can get some pretty cheap plastic ratcheting clamps from B&Q or wherever. Use those to hold the door. If you're using a saw then clamp something with a straight edge across the door so that you can run the saw's guide along it to ensure you get a straight cut. If you're using a sander/planer then just mark well and keep checking that you're going evenly.

Planer or sander would work, but be slower, and more likely to be a bit uneven.

I got skillz then, yeh....

Any mates or work colleagues who would do it as a favour/ for some ciggies?

if you can use a hand saw that's your easiest way to do it. Just draw a line round the bottom of the door about 15mm and cut it off, died easy. Oh and just find out where your local A and E is just in case 🙂

Nice new hand saw. Don't use a jigsaw as untrained use has a tendency to cut the required depth off one side and more or less on the other. Circular and planer have a tendency to spelch veneers etc if you're not careful.

If it was me then I would buy a good hand saw , one with a high number of tpi ( teeth per inch ) 14 would be good, this will make a nice fine cut.
The thing with power tools is the make lots of noise can't see what your cutting while working and saw dust will be flying everywhere, this can be all a little scary.
With a nice saw you can see what is happening and if you start to go wrong and go off the line, you can stop and sort it out before its too late. Also you will have the saw dust on the floor beneath the door not all over your room. You could lie it on the kitchen table, clamp it or get someone to hold it for you.
Good luck

My Mum lives up in the Scottish Borders and when she had new carpets the fitters did all the doors as required, they saw it as a part of the job - I was surprised too.

But for your doors, ask a friend - far the easiest way.

Otherwise you'll need a saw (manual or electric), set of saw-horses or Workmate and one saw-horse plus a couple of clamps to hold it.

It's very easy to cock up a door with a planner if you havnt used one before. Buy a fine tooth hand saw about £8, rest on 2 chairs, mark a line 8mm parallel from bottom of door and saw away. Alternatively get someone else to do it 🙂

I had to do one a little while ago. Ended up buying an electric plane, worked out to be the most cost-effective way of doing it. Straight forward if you go slow and steady and don't try to take too much off at once.

circular saw, then plane to line, ideally.

Useless carpet fitters
I do all doors that need it when I fit flooring .
it's a nice little earner and when you have taken it off already
what would have happened if it was the front door you can't just leave it off
for the night .

Jigsaw will probably cut at an angle, circular saw will cut square but the standard disc may rip the out of it, me and hand planers are not a match made in heaven but I found electric/power planers to be a revelation. Several small bites and you'll be done before you know.

Incidentally, couple of random thoughts,

Are they actually plane-able doors, or are they hollow? Is taking 8mm off the bottom going to leave you with a big hole where the edge of the door used to be?

If you're taking power tools to them, wear eye protection. My door had hitherto undiscovered nails in it, which make a hell of a bang and a spark when an electric plane finds them.

You might want to use the planner from each edge. If you just use an electric planner it may rip the veneer of the edge.

Used my electric planner a few times. Keep eyeballing it as its easy to bow it or do it on an angle. You have to offer up the door a fair few times to make sure you don't take off too much. It's easy.

If not solid wood make sure it can handle 8mm off. If not its tricky cos you might need to do 4 off each end and move it up a bit.

But if its just the bottom, mark the new height with a bold line on both sides, plane it off. Hire an electric plane, take a little off at a time, do it outside cos they are messy. Hold the door between your knees and do one half, then flip it over and do the other. Then round off the edges with paper.

Thanks for all the advice! They're solid wood so can handle the 8mm. There were enough 'It's very easy to cock up a door' replies for me to not try this myself. So I've phoned my brother-in-law, and he thinks it's easy - and has kindly offered to do mine. With a manual plane apparently.

For 8mm, I'd just use a hand saw, wouldn't take more than a few minutes - a straight cut is quite easy to achieve.

Power tools will be difficult to control. Draw a pencil line so you know what to remove and just use either a mid/fine blade hand saw or a [url= http://www.screwfix.com/p/stanley-surform-block-plane/20388;jsessionId=sZvLQMDWylhpcQ0rjd7k85SJxgRKv6SMD1qPlkwQmp1z1gPTSPjB!-1019382434!1351353238119# ]rasp plane thingy[/url]

As i do this quite frequently, and a neighbour had her doors taken off last week and left even the front door,put door against frame with hinges near the slots in the frame, this will give you an idea, of the amount to take off, now transfer this size paralel to the BASE of the door, make sure it is the base had a custmenr took half inch off the top of the door by mistake.

Then with door between your legs on its edge,use a power plane to gently ease some mm,s off the door, go down half way then turn door over and do the same until you reach yourline, re hang door and check for clearance, 2 screws in each hinge.

ENSURE THE DOOR DOES NOT SLIP BACKWARDS THROUGH YOUR LEGS, AS CONTACT WITH A PLANNER ACROSS YOUR KNEE RESULTS IN A AND E TREATMENT, GOT THE SCAR FROM THAT EPISODE

Oh and as its a loft conversion it should be a fire door, theyre heavy, so two peeps to carry it down, a power plane also makes a lot of dust.

Do what Project said. I do it like this but couldn't be bothered typing all that out.

Thanks project. That's exactly the clear kind of advice I'm after.

as its a loft conversion it should be a fire door

We had fire doors for building control, but then replaced then with nice old doors from downstairs (where we lost some walls).

We had fire doors for building control, but then replaced then with nice old doors from downstairs (where we lost some walls).

Sorry but thats the whole concept of a fire door to stop smoke and fire killing your relatives, it should be interesting if very hopefully you never have a fire and need to make a claim of your insurance comapny as it will probably be rejected, as youve destroyed the fire integrity of the compartmentisation of your building.

Having seen the damage a fire does to a one bedroom flat, because the fire door on the kitchen wasnt closed, and having to kick in the front and drag the lad out before the fire brigade got there, i would seriously re fit the fire doors.

But then perhaps you can give me 6 numbers between 1 and 49 for next weeks lottery. 😯