Carpentry and Woodworking - Trimming inset cabinet doors -- How to??

I am replacing overlay doors in a built-in with inset doors. Unfortunately, the openings are not perfectly square.

I need to trim off between 1/16 and 1/8 inch on all sides.

I'm having trouble finding the right tool to do this -- have tried a belt sander and plane with not much luck. Does anyone know of a good tool to use or technique??

Thanks // MarkDIY

I worked for a guy once who had an electric plane. I had never seen one before. That would do it. A gig saw might work too, but I don't know how even it would be.

The perfect tool is an oscillating edge sander, like the one in the link below...

Jet 6 X 89 OSCILLATING EDGE SANDER (http://woodworker.com/cgi-bin/FULLPRES.exe?PARTNUM=150-269)

However, most people don't have one, and can't afford to spend the money on it if your not going to need it all the time.

I have actually clamped my hand held belt sander to a work surface, so I had both hands free to move the piece. The belt sander needs to be clamped slightly below the surface that the piece will be moving on, so you can hit the center of the belt. Worked really well.

Inset doors can be a real pain, unless your face frames are perfectly square. I've been building cabinets for a long time, and still need to adjust the doors for this on cabinets I just built. Hard to avoid

Get yourself a body shop idiot file that uses sand paper. Thats:D what I do sometimes when the sanders are to fast and taking off to much material. :D

Hi,

get yourself a pattern cutting router bit. this bit has the bearing above the cutter instead of below.

then all you have to do is clamp a 1/2" or thicker straightedge along the line you want to trim off. remember that the router will trim everything proud of your straightedge so be accurate.

start in the middle so not to tear out the ends of your doors and remove the excess.

good luck