A friend asked if I could make a 24" w x 62" door like this one that accesses an attic space:




Rather than build a new door I asked if she had or could find a standard height door like it. Turns out she had one in storage with no purpose and agreed to let me cut it down. The top and bottom rails had both been trimmed down earlier in life, but the bottom rail was still wide enough to reuse as the new top rail. So I would have to make a new bottom rail but that turned out to be pretty easy as I was able to reuse the sticking from the old top rail.

The old shellac finish on the door stiles and rails was really bad so I had to sand it off, but it was plenty good on the panel so all I had to do was clean it and reuse it. I disassembled the door by boring from the ends to cut the dowel joinery, then pulled it apart with only a little prying and whacking. The door was made with stave core Douglas fir with QS mahogany skins. I made the new bottom rail from stave core poplar and used 1/8" ribbon grain Sapele veneer. I used TB II to glue on the skins, something I don't normally use but figured I'd try it after so many Creekers reported good results with it in their veneering work. It went very smoothly. You can see the sticking I cut off the old top rail in this photo of the new bottom rail.



The old bottom rail ends had been coped to fit over the sticking on the stiles, but I couldn't do that with the new bottom rail, so I used a jack miter. After cutting mortises for loose tenons, I cut the sticking off the stiles where the new rail meets it.



I used a shoulder plane to remove the last little bit of the sticking. I cut off the ends of the bottom rail right at the ends of the sticking, then cut mortises in it to correspond with those in the stiles.



After it was glued up with epoxy, the joints flushed, the ends trimmed to final length, and finish sanded, I set about matching the aged shellac finish of the center panel. I ended up using a two step process. I started with orange shellac doped with Transtint Vintage Dark Maple dye. After several light coats I had this.



Then I switched to Sealcoat shellac doped with a pretty healthy dose of Green Transtint and 1/4 of that amount of Bright Red to shift the color towards brown. And here's the finished door.



I made a paint grade poplar jamb for the door, cut the mortises, and reinstalled all the hardware before delivery to the owner who would install it and trim it out. She was pleased.

Nice little project.

John