Hollow core door: trim or shim?

[seamlyne]

The widths of all of our bedroom doors are a variation on the theme of "about 31 inches, give or take." Installing a new door on our son's bedroom, I bought a 32", hollow core door and trimmed it to fit: 4" off the bottom, 1-3/8" off the hinge side.

Doing this trimming left me with an open hole on the bottom and inadequate support for the hinge screws on the side. I cut filler pieces for the bottom and the hinge locations (cutting out the thin remaining wood to make room.) Kind of a pain, but not unexpected.

I have three more doors to do. I wondered about buying a door the next size down, and gluing/screwing a shim piece to the hinge side.

Any thoughts?

- Bill in Kansas City, Mo, USA
Low Cost Websites, Search Engine Optimization, Multimedia, Video, Audio
Measure with a micrometer. Mark with a crayon. Cut with an ax.

[HayZee518]

you may be better off doing something with the hollow core because it'll be a pain trying to match the veneer and stain of the stock door. use standard 2x4 framing lumber - it may behove you to locate a carpenter or a lumber yard that does millwork and have them use a thickness planer to get the inserts the thickness of the core opening. glue the door's veneer to your inserts.

[pushkins]

You could carefully cut out the remaining hinge side filler piece, and cut and install a bigger one.
Once you have cut down your door run a really sharp blade/knife down the door between the wood filler and the door's veneer on both sides of the filler, you should then be able to remove it and reinstall a new wider piece, glue it in like the bottom filler.

You could also buy a solid pine door and then you wouldn't have an issue at all.