On 2/17/2014 8:36 PM, Larry Blanchard wrote:
On Mon, 17 Feb 2014 14:33:59 -0500, dadiOH wrote:

Measure the rails in a wood door sometime. A year or two ago I made
four 1 1/2" thick wood doors; the lock rails are either 5" or 5.5",
don't recall at the moment; bottom rail is 8" wide.

Check them in 20 years :-).

There are any number of solid panel doors 100+ with at least 8" bottom
rails that are still just fine--there are three within view of the desk
here where I currently sit in here that will turn 100 within the next
two years. One (the exterior door rather than interior) is actually a
full-length (nearly) single-pane glass with the bottom rail of --well,
let's just measure it, actually, instead of estimating--ok, it's 18".

These are a mixture of Doug fir and SYP.

What's your material?

If you're concerned, only rigidly glue the top half or so; let the rest
float but it'll likely be just fine.

--