The closets in my 1950s-built home were designed for bypass doors and thus have weird dimensions, generally around 46 to 47" wide.

I want to replace those bypass doors with standard hollow-core bifolds (without resorting to expensive custom sizes), but I also realize that at a minimum I would need to take the doors somewhere to have the sides trimmed down...

So I'm thinking of picking up two 24" doors and trimming 1/2" off each vertical side's edge, four sides total, to drop the 48" down to 46".

1) Does trimming them down a little sound like a feasible option? I don't have any woodworking tools myself so where would I take the doors to get them trimmed down accurately?
2) Do you think I'd be safe trimming that much off or is there a risk of exposing the hollow interior? (The brand would likely be Jeld-Wen or ReliaBilt, depending on which home store I hit up.)

Thanks,
Jamie

 

There is very little meat sandwiched between veneer in a hollow bi fold door slab. Keep a contingency plan to have some solid wood ripped at the same time that you can insert and glue/clamp and let set up. What little is there is a paper/MDF and once you remove some, you loose all integrity. Fortunately, you are cutting from the sides which are purely decorative. The pivot point on the bi fold lies in the top and bottom rails. I'd have to look at one to verify that there is sufficient room in the track to allow the hinge pivot to slide back if you remove 1/2". If not, there will be a noticeable gap at the hinge jamb side and you will not make your 46" measurement.

 

Don't trim much more than 1/2" off each edge, as a hollow core door relies on a frame around its perimeter to keep it rigid. You may can contact a Technical college near you as sometimes they have wood shops and can do it in a matter of minutes on a table saw. A really nice neighbor with a table saw could help also. I would install solid door frames with louvers in closets. It would allow trimming and keep the solid frame intact, as well as airing out your closets, where solid patterned doors wouldn't. Just an option.

 

Apologies for necro-bumping my own thread... I've finally gotten ahold of the doors, two at 24"w each which are actually about 23.5" wide (47"w total), and a circular saw to trim them.

A previous closet I did (47.75"w) has the same 24"w doors and they just barely fit. Figuring that the wider closet had a difference of .75" between the doors and the frame, if I'm doing the math right that means I should free up 1" of space total on the new doors for the 47" opening, which would mean trimming 1/2" off each door. It looks like there's a good inch of frame around each side of the panels, but I'm prepared to insert some wood back into the cut if necessary.

Does that sound right? I guess I'm trying to verify how much clearance these doors actually need to function properly.

 

IMO you should have bought two 24" bifolds so that you have four @ 12" then cut about 3/8" off each panel.

 

^ Yes! Sorry, I wasn't clear. What I have is exactly what you said: two sets of bifolds, each consisting of two panels hinged together (24"w), for four panels total (48"w).

You're recommending I actually trim both sides of a "set", vs. just one side. Is that for structural reasons? So less is taken off one side and it's more evenly distributed?

 

Yes, shaving 1/4 off each side of each door is better than taking 1/2" off one side. Run them through a table saw if you have one. disassemble them first of course.

 

You pretty much have to trim both sides of each panel as I remember...otherwise they won't operate correctly.

 

I just wanted to give one more "thanks" to everyone in this thread. I successfully trimmed down the doors with my circular saw (opted for 1/4" off the two outside edges of each door set instead of 1/8" off all the verticals), painted them, and hung them this up past weekend. Fits perfectly, works perfectly.

One closet down, four to go.