Building the Doors
Mill the rough cut of the door tenon on your table saw using dado cutters, then plane them down to fit the mortise.
The doors are made from solid oak using frame-and-panel construction. I first chopped the mortises in the stiles and cut matching tenons on the rails, fitting each to its mortise with a shoulder plane.
To make the grooves for the door panel’s rails and stiles, make the long even cuts on your table saw.
Then, on the table saw, I plowed the 5/16″ x 5/16″ grooves in the rail and stile stock that would receive the edges of the door panels, after which I turned my attention to the raised panels that would be fit inside the frames.
For the Diagrams and Door Materials List, click here to download the PDF
The flat front face of each door panel is decorated with walnut stringing made with a quick-and-dirty inlay technique. I first used a hollow-ground planer blade on my table saw to cut clean grooves on the face of each panel. I left that same blade in the saw to rip off thin strips from a walnut panel I had thicknessed to the exact width of the grooves. After applying a little glue to the grooves, I tapped the strips into place. I completed the process by planing each strip flush with the surface.
Using a sharp jack plane, cut the front and back surfaces of your panel to bring the edge thickness down.
Since the door panels show their flat faces in front, I raised the back surface of each panel by planing wide bevels all around to reduce the edge thickness.
Use a pencil to mark out where you will make your planer cuts, to achieve a consistent gap.
The bevels were laid out by marking one line on the edges of each panel about 5/16″ from the front surface and a second on the back surface of each panel about 1-1⁄2″ from the edge.
After dry-assembling each door to check the joinery, I glued the mortises and tenons and clamped the assembled door, leaving it to cure on a flat surface.
To set up for installation of your hinges, use a tapered center punch to create the dimple for your initial screw hole.
My setup for mortising door hinges employs a vise, a catch block and one of the corner brackets I used earlier when installing the end panels. This presents the door at a convenient height for handwork and keeps it stable under the force of chisels and a mallet.
Before you drill, heck the height of where your hinge will be installed with the drill bit you’ll use to make the screw holes.
The mortises on the door frame, however, have to be chopped on the assembled cabinet in less convenient circumstances.
Using scrap for the other part of the assembly and your hinge, check the hinge’s seating to make sure you don’t have to make any corrections before final assembly.
However, despite my gauge and my careful installation, I still managed to goof in the installation of one door. I could have filled the hinge screw holes and re-installed the hinges. (Like I said, things can happen …)
Before moving on, check to make sure your panel is completely smooth, mark any high points with your pencil and plane them down.
Instead, I decided to fix the error with a plane. To do this, I marked the high section with pencil scribble, then removed the hinges and planed those scribbled high areas flat.
Now that my machining and joinery was completed, I moved to sanding the project smooth up through the grits, and applied three coats of oil-based polyurethane — this sort of project takes a bit of abuse.
All that remained to do was to bring it to my son’s apartment, which unfortunately meant carrying it up a few flights of stairs. Maybe the next time I offer to build something for him, delivery will not be included in the bargain!
