Wood – Rip old door in half

doorswood

I've got a 26.5"x79" rough opening for a storage space under my staircase. I'd like to install a double door where each door is about a foot wide an hinges out. A ball latch in the top casing could keep them in place when closed.

My preference is to match the Victorian aesthetic of the rest of the house so I was thinking about taking an old solid interior door that's about 24"x80" that has stiles etc (don't know all the correct terms) and rip it in half then cut the top and/or bottom to dimension.

My question is, would the door fall apart if I did this because the glued joints would be compromised?
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Edit: Added photo of example door and dimensions above.

Best Answer

It might work - however the problem would be where the centre uprights join the horizontal sections.

This piece of ascii art might help:

||========||
||   ||   ||
||   ||   ||
||   ||   ||
||========||
||   ||   ||
||   ||   ||
||   ||   ||
||========||

Where "||" is the vertical sections and "==" the horizontal.

You'll end up with two sections like this:

||====    ====||
||   |    |   ||
||   |    |   ||
||   |    |   ||
||====    ====||
||   |    |   ||
||   |    |   ||
||   |    |   ||
||====    ====||

As you can see buy cutting up the centre you are cutting through the middle of the joints which will weaken the joints and they could come apart.

These joints are mortice and tenon and you could try strengthening them by putting a dowel through the tenon before cutting:

Strengthen door before cuttting

Drill all the way through, insert the dowel (with glue), plane and sand smooth. If you're painting the doors you won't see the join. To drill the hole straight you could use a portable drill guide or a plunge router.

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