How to cut a wooden door leaf evenly. How to make your front door smaller. How to shrink hollow entry doors

Repairs, relocations or just a change of scenery is a frequent occurrence for many "mobile families". However, sometimes we want everything at once: for example, to leave the old door, given that the opening is not suitable for it at all. But as practice shows, this is a small problem. If you have a great desire - you can always reduce the door ...

Usually one of the most common problems is the discrepancy between the height of the door and the opening. With the correct installation of the door and its correct dimensions, there should be no gaps. According to the standards, the gap in the lower and upper parts of the door leaf should be about 1 cm. There are often factory defects when, after installation, the fit is too tight, as a result of which the floor is scratched. To do everything right, you need to resort to the advice of a specialist or study the literature. When doing work, you can not do without:
  • Wedge;
  • Ordinary hammer;
  • Screwdrivers ;
  • standard cutter;
  • Construction line made of metal;
  • screw terminals;
  • Wood pads;
  • Saws for wood;
  • Kozlov;
  • Sponges;
  • Special glue.
So, first you must complete the procedure for removing the door from the hinges. You need to carefully insert the wedge under the bottom of the hinge and press it down with a screwdriver. Now you can remove the door. If you have difficulties, or something went wrong, try turning the loops slightly while pressing. You can also use a hammer to knock out the axis of the hinge itself.


After you have removed the door, you need to put it on a solid base (for example, a table or goats). Decide on the size of the opening to understand how much to reduce the door. Do not forget to make notes with the desired edges. For convenience, draw a line along which you will make an incision. We approach the process of cutting the door. To do this, you will need: a metal ruler, a cutter and a circular saw. Be careful, no one canceled your safety technique. Do the work slowly, keep your hand at an angle. Cut off part of the door strictly along the measured line, but not to the very end, as cuts may occur at the base. Attach the construction ruler to the edge and carefully complete the incision of the door leaf.


If you are dealing with a hollow door, there are some features here. To get started, follow all the steps as when cutting a standard door. Then save the cut off part and process with the tool. At the same time, you need to cut off everything superfluous, leaving only a thin, even plank. In size, it should ideally fit the place that you cut off. It is necessary to glue a piece of the board there and let it dry completely. The crossbar can be safely fixed with clamps, while using wooden spacers. So the door lining will not be damaged and will retain its original appearance. There are cases when you should work with a doorway: for example, you have purchased a new door, but it is larger than it. To do this, after the removal procedure from the hinges, it is necessary to clean the wall from plaster to brickwork or drywall (depending on the type of your house). Then carefully measure the desired distance and mark with lines. Remember to leave a gap of 0.5 cm for convenience. The wall must be primed. Following the markings, start gluing drywall with construction adhesive. Fasten the supporting profiles into the new wall with bars. Screw drywall to the slope of the doorway, do not forget to eliminate all the gaps in the joints. Now your wall is ready for the next layer of plaster and the installation of the door.


Factory-made doors of standard sizes leave a gap of about 1 cm at the bottom, and air exchange was provided between rooms inside the house. However, if a new coating is laid, then the door often has to be hemmed from below. We will tell you how you can do it yourself.

You will need:

  • wooden wedge
  • screwdriver
  • a hammer
  • goats
  • cutter
  • metal ruler
  • screw terminals
  • Circular Saw
  • chisel
  • wood glue
  • wooden spacers
  • sponge

Process:

1. Remove the door from its hinges. To do this, place a wooden wedge under the hinge - it acts like a lever - and press on it with a screwdriver. If the axle does not give in, try to rotate it back and forth and it will gradually come out of its nest. There are also such models of hinges that are removed after the axis of the hinge is knocked out with a hammer and a screwdriver.
2. Place the removed door on the trestles.
3. Mark the line of the intended cut and make a deep cut along it with a cutter. It will prevent the cut from fraying while cutting the door.
4. Secure the metal ruler with the screw clamps along the saw line.
5. Cut the bottom of the door.
6. If a void is found under the incision (the door is hollow from the inside), you need to put the original cross member in place of the cut.
7. To chisel the crossbar, scrape off the adhesive and peel off the skin on both sides of the crossbar to expose the wood.
8. When the size is right, coat the crossbar with wood glue and insert it into the cavity in the door.
9. Fasten the freshly glued cross member with screw clamps, substituting, as necessary, wooden spacers to protect the door trim from damage.
10. Remove excess adhesive with a damp sponge.
11. Leave the door to dry.
12. After a day, the door can be returned to its place.

Sometimes there are situations when the door leaf in its length does not fit the doorway. In such cases, it must either be cut off, using a circular electric saw or a hacksaw with a fine tooth.

Or vice versa, it needs to be slightly increased in length. To do this, you will need wood glue, screws and planed wood, the same size as the door leaf. Due to seasonal deformations, wooden doors can either swell or dry out.

Therefore, if the door is swollen, then a small layer of wood will need to be removed from it so that they can close well. But in those cases when the door is dry, they make a special wooden gasket, the thickness of which can be adjusted.

To do this, you need a small piece of copper, tin or brass, but only a rectangular shape. Then this gasket is attached to the end of the door leaf with nails or screws, about half its height, while bending it in half.

After that, an elastic gasket is carefully placed between the plates, and they are clamped quite tightly. As a result, if necessary, it will always be possible to change the thickness of the clamp, thereby ensuring the tightness of the doors closing.

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When carrying out repairs in individual buildings of an old building, where there are very low ceilings and not quite standard doorways, the question often arises of changing the dimensions of the standard door being purchased. The same questions may arise during the installation and repair of floors, as well as after laying a new floor carpet.

Most modern stores now have the opportunity to change the size of existing doors for sale, as they take into account customer requests and organize small carpentry workshops directly in their stores, or cooperate with companies that can provide this type of service.

But it is not always possible to find people who will undertake changes to a standard door. And sometimes it is necessary to adjust the door already bought and delivered home. And transporting it for shortening is impractical. Therefore, the issue of changing the size of doors at home remains relevant.

And believe me, it is possible to solve this issue on your own, practically without any costs, except for your ingenuity and your own work.

How to cut a door

To change door standards, first of all, you need to know the design features of the door you have.

According to the manufacturing method, the designs of interior doors are divided into panel and frame (paneled, strapping).

Panel doors consist of: a frame - a frame made of wooden bars (battens), sheathing made on both sides of sheet material, and filling in the form of paper honeycombs, polyurethane or spiral shavings. Shield doors can be deaf and partially glazed.

Frame doors consist of: strapping (main bars), mullions (bars dividing the door leaf into parts) and filler (panels). Glass, fiberboard and chipboard are used as panels.

If it is not difficult to shorten the doors yourself, at home, then changing the width of the door is much more difficult, but also quite possible.

But let's stay short. Before starting work, you must definitely remember the old Russian proverb: "Measure seven times and cut once." It is necessary to carefully calculate everything, prepare the necessary tools, the necessary materials.

We will need:

  1. hacksaw with fine teeth
  2. a manual circular electric saw or an angle grinder (in the common people - "Bulgarian"),
  3. plane,
  4. wood glue and wooden blocks of a suitable size. We use bars - 30x30 mm.

If we use a "grinder", then a cutting wheel for metal is best suited for the production of work. When working, there will be a lot of smoke and burning from it, but it will allow you to get a drink without delamination and cracks on materials such as fiberboard and MDF.

If we shorten with a hand-held circular saw, then for work we take a disk with fine teeth and as many of them as possible - 80-112 pcs.

We will make the measurements we need and proceed to the process of shortening itself.

We mark the canvas

And if we make a cut with a circular saw, then on the reverse side we attach a board to the door in order to get a smooth, burr-free cut.

If we do the work with the help of a "grinder", then it is necessary to make a wooden structure on both sides of the door. Attaching and securing the boards on both sides. This design will serve to stop the circle in it.

We make door trims

The lower section of the door leaf consists of a solid wooden bar, taking into account the possibility of shortening. But usually, its width is not enough for cropping. Therefore, it will come in handy for us, a 30x30 mm bar prepared by us. To close the cavity that opened after shortening. With the help of a hacksaw, we prepare the bar we need along the length, adjust it in thickness with a planer, and mount it on glue.

When cutting the door leaf of a panel door or a panel door with glass inserts, it is necessary to remember the proportions of all its components (the ratio of the sizes of all parts and the whole to each other). By greatly changing the size of the bottom of the door, we can break its harmony. And the door itself and the whole interior will be completely different.

Therefore, we need to consider the possibility of trimming the canvas on both sides, both from the top and from the bottom.

In the same way as described above, it is possible to change the width of the door.

But I would not recommend doing this, because cutting, with the help of the tool we have at our disposal, to a length of 2 meters, will be very problematic and all the resulting flaws will be very noticeable. Such work is best done on special machines and entrusted to professionals.

And we can, if necessary, try to change the size of the doorway.

In general, we see that it is quite possible to change the size of the door, if necessary, at home.

Get to work, you will definitely succeed.

How to cut a door video


How to cut a door video
It would seem, why cut an already installed and serviceable door. However, sometimes such a need arises, for example, if the installation of interior doors has already been done earlier, and during the next repair, the owner needed to lay the laminate on the floor, but the doors are not designed for this in height. In this case, it is much easier to shorten the door than to change it to a new design. The question is how to do it correctly and competently.

Any homeowner, producing, expects that the new design will serve him, as they say, faithfully, for many years. To do this, he chooses reliable and high-quality doors from trusted manufacturers or orders from professionals and wants to be sure that he will not need to repair interior doors. In most cases, this happens, but there are situations when trimming the door in height is necessary, for example, if during the next repair the owner wanted to replace the flooring, and he decided that laying a laminate or parquet board would be a great option. As you know, laying parquet boards and laminate flooring is associated with a change in the level of the floor, and, therefore, it is necessary to shorten the door so that it does not touch the floor covering when closing and opening. After all, it is unlikely that anyone would think of buying and re-installing interior doors, which entails high costs.

And here comes the most difficult moment. Few non-professionals know how to properly trim the door to avoid possible damage and spoiled appearance of the structure. Of course, ideally, you should contact the specialists who install and repair interior doors, and have the professional knowledge and tools to perform this, by no means a simple operation. But if this option does not suit the homeowner or is impossible for some reason, he can cut the interior door on his own. And for this, he will need either a manual or manual milling cutter, available in the arsenal of most home craftsmen, as well as a video instruction on how exactly to cut the door so as not to spoil it.

With the help of a manual circular saw, by the way, you can shorten an interior door without even removing it from its hinges. To do this, you must first carefully measure the required size of the saw cut, setting the circular saw blade in such a way that when passing along a flat floor surface and file the door, making an even horizontal cut across the entire width of the blade. You can visually see exactly how the door is trimmed without removing it on the first video instruction in this section. This operation is carried out, as a rule, before the laying of the laminate on the floor, since otherwise it is much more difficult to trim the door without removing it from the hinges.

In this video you will see how to trim an interior door without removing it from its hinges.

A more complex, time-consuming, but at the same time more convenient way to shorten an interior door is to use a manual router. On the second video you can see the whole process in detail. To do this, the door must be removed from its hinges, fixed on a flat surface of a table or workbench with clamps, pressing a flat wooden block on top, which will serve as a guide for the router. It is important to install it so that the cutter removes wood exactly at the distance that is necessary. With a router, trimming the door will take longer than with a circular, because you have to make several passes, gradually delving into the canvas. However, this way to shorten the door is more reliable, especially if the home master is not a specialist and