Just bought a nice, 15 light French door at the local "Re-Store" to use in one of the bedrooms of the condo. The door's surface has quite a lot of dent and scratch damage caused by mis-handling during salvage, but all of the glass is intact. Since the door will be painted, these cosmetic flaws are unimportant.
I was able, with the aid of a long metal straight edge and circular saw equipped with a planing blade, to cut 1/8" off each edge of the door to get it to fit into the existing door frame. This allowed for fresh dados to accomodate the hinges and kept everything nice and symmetrical. A quick trim of the top and bottom of the door completed the re-sizing.
The only major stumbling block is the height of the passage set. The position of the new door handle is lower than the existing door frame location. The door frames in the condo are one-piece metal assemblies. The strike plate location is fixed and cannot be moved up or down without a great amount of grinding, welding, and cursing.
The easiest solution is to raise the handle position in the door. Using a trepanning cutter in the drill press, I produced a number of pine slugs to fill in the existing holes. These have been glued and clamped into the body of the door, then shaved flush with a broad chisel. Using an appropriate hole saw and spade bit, I will re-drill the door at the new passage set location. Any remaining voids, dents, and scratches in the door will be filled with wood putty, sanded, and primed.
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