Entry Doors

Frame-and-panel construction is sturdy, handsome

by Ben Davies

Exterior doors are the problem child of architectural design. They are required to perform three functions: seal off an opening from the exterior air, open to allow passage and then reseal, and be attractive. All this from wood, a material that can change in size as much as an inch over the width of a typical opening. While each of these functions might be separately accomplished with ease, their combination into one design creates problems. Single-panel board-and-batten constructions of edge-glued lumber are generally too unstable for exterior doors. They cast or wind unless great care is taken in the selection and seasoning of the lumber. They also expand and contract so much with the seasons that sealing against the weather is impossible. These shortcomings can be overcome by using frameand-panel construction and, in fact, most doors are made this way. The style is relatively stable and offers great flexibility of design. Even the familiar commercial veneered doors are a variation of the frame and panelthe panel is reduced in

thickness to veneer and glued over the frame rather than inserted into grooves, and cardboard honeycomb or wood cores support the veneer. These doors succeed admirably in the first two functions a door must perform, but fail miserably at being attractive. The frame-and-panel door has been in use for so long that its construction is well understood, and variations on its designs have been thoroughly explored. When any construction method remains dominant for hundreds of years it can mean only that it works quite well. The standard size for entrance doors of new construction in the United States is 3 ft. wide by 6 ft. 8 in. high. A walnut door of this size can weigh 80 lb. to 100 lb. or more, depending on the thickness of the panels and the amount of glass. This is considerably heavier than a softwood or hollow-core door of the same size, and great care must be taken to ensure that the joints are well designed and well constructed. I have seen a number of doors fail that were constructed

Routed sticking stops short of corners in raisedpanel door, left, but continues around corners of flat-panel door, center. Both are Honduras mahogany. Detail from oak door, above, shows routed sticking combined with molding.

Machine-made tenon
left, is as strong as

with blind dowels,

and wedged joint.

traditional haunched

Left, the parts of a forces involved. In

door; right, a diagram of the

effect, the entire weight of the door

Handmade through tenon, haunched and wedged, may eventually protrude.

is transmitted to
the hinge stile
Every pound of

through point A.
may split pinned tenon along grain, making holes into slots.

door weight adds five pounds of strain to the tenon

Seasonal movement and stress

on the hinge side.

with a mortise-and-tenon joint pinned through the cheek

door, while the blind dowel can be twice as long as the width

with dowels. A stronger joint is one with blind dowels inserted into the end of the tenon and bottom of the mortise. I
use a 3-in. deep mortise and tenon with three or more 1/2-in.

of the stile minus the tenon length. The extra dowel length is
significant because part of the glue line between the dowels and their holes is end grain joined to long grain.

diameter blind dowels to join the stiles with the rails. Interior
parts of the frame, such as muntins, are joined to the rails with smaller tenons, usually made to fit the groove cut for the

I have not discussed the through wedged tenon because

this joint must be made by hand, a relatively time-consuming

panels, and are also blind-doweled. For flat panels I ordinarily use a 1/2-in. deep groove in the rails and a 3/4-in. deep
groove in the stiles. This difference is to compensate for the

operation. However, the joint is strong, although in the long run the tenon will protrude slightly from the stile.

The total strength of a blind doweled mortise-and-tenon

depends on two factors: the shear strength of the glue line that joins the cheek of the tenon to the wall of the mortise, and the lesser of the tensile strength of the wood in the
dowels and the shear strength of the glue line around the dowels. The dowel joint is strongest when the outside dowels

greater shrinkage that occurs across the grain of the panels.

Several factors make blind dowel pins preferable to through-the-cheek pins. The first is visual. Dowels through

the cheek are often chosen because they give the same sense of
rigidity to frames as dovetails give to casework. While they do

make a door look sturdy, the time will surely come when that
particular effect is not wanted.

More importantly, I believe the blind-doweled tenon to be

stronger than one pinned through the cheek. A tenon with

are as far apart as possible without getting so close to the end that the tenon is split by hydraulic pressure from the glue. A mortise and tenon can be strengthened by increasing the size of the tenon, thereby increasing the glue area. The thinness of the glue line is also quite importantthe thinner the
better. The smoother the walls of the mortise and the sides of the tenons, the better the adhesion of glue to wood. I use a chain mortiser to make the mortise, and for the tenons, either

blind dowels need not be haunched because the dowel pins

not only make the tenon effectively longer, but also transform a stub tenon into a haunched tenon. Thus the glue area of the

tenon becomes about one-third greater. And a stub tenon can

be made more quickly than a haunched tenon.

Dowels perform two main functions. One is to prevent the

tenon from sliding out of the mortise and the other is to

a tenoning jig on the table saw or a single-end tenoner, which cuts with a cylindrical head like a jointer. But the tools used are not as important as getting a close fit.
While the decline and fall of Western civilization is widely

counteract the bending moment of the weight of the door

about the point where the tenon enters the stile. The lever arm through which the through-the-cheek dowel must act is

anticipated, these things do take time, and until the event

actually occurs there are few circumstances in which a door will be exposed to moisture other than that which is in the air. Therefore I generally use aliphatic resin (yellow) glue on doors

necessarily about 3 / 4 in. shorter than that of the blind dowels. In a 3-in. tenon this difference translates into 25%
greater strain on the pins. It is very important to understand that on a 36-in. door with stiles 6 in. wide, every pound of

door weight adds about 5 lb. of strain to the dowels on the

hinge side of the door. The wider the door and the narrower

that will be protected by a porch. This well in practice. In order to be classified joint must withstand boiling water for losing strength. If you plan to boil

glue has worked out "waterproof," a glue some hours without your doors, phenol

resorcinol glue is what you want. No matter what glue is used,

the stiles, the more intense the leverage. The maximum

length of a through-the-cheek dowel is the thickness of the

be sure to seal both ends of the door with polyurethane

varnish, even if the door is to be delivered unfinished. This is

Ben Davies makes doors and furniture at Muntin Woodworks in Chattanooga, Tenn. He has taught philosophy.

often neglected by the painter. Wooden panels for a door can be flat or raised. Raised panels are somewhat easier to fit, because with flat panels the fit

Federal law requires manufacturers to use tempered glass, but permits leaded glass panels as long as no single piece of glass is larger

than 30 sq. in, and no opening is large enough to pass a baseball. Beveled octagonal glass, left, is a framed panel within a panel.

must be precisevery nearly tight enough to split the stile or rail but not so tight as to actually do it. Something can be gained by slightly tapering the edge of a panel by a hand plane or belt sander but this requires a very light touch. Any irregularity or dip left by the plane will show up distinctly where the panel enters the frame. When using panels of
glued-up stock, it is a good idea to design the door so that no

panel is wider than about 12 in. This is particularly true where there is a cutout in the center for glass. If the panel and glass fit tightly, the wood of the panel may split at its narrow point when contracting, rather than moving in its grooves. Of course, don't fragment a design just to obtain narrow panels. If a wide panel is necessary, flat-cut veneer over plywood will give great stability. Or large panels themselves can be made up as another frame within the frame of the rails and stiles, if the changing grain directions do not do violence to the design. A number of coats of polyurethane varnish on the door will inhibit the transfer of moisture from wood to air and reduce the shrinkage-expansion oscillations. Often an integral part of the doors I design is a piece of stained glass that is curved or in some other way not rectangular. Installing the glass in the irregular opening can be a problem. The easiest solution is to let the glass into a
groove when gluing up the door, in the same manner as for a

sign. Silicone caulk is excellent and long lasting, but it is also a glue and the window will have to be cut loose with a razor blade if it has to be removed. If curves are too acute for steam-bent wood, an extremely flexible brown plastic panel retainer can be used. It is available from Minnesota Woodworkers Supply, Rogers, Minn. 55374. If neither steam bending nor plastics is appealing, you can use the band saw or sabre saw to cut a molding out of solid stock to fit the line exactly where glass and wood meet. This
works well, but is time-consuming. Leave the stock 1/2 in. or

more thick, make the cutout, then fashion some detail on the edge complementary to the sticking (the shape cut into the inside edge of the frame) on the door. The sticking on all commercial doors is done so that the detail runs the full length of the stile. Its mirror image, called
the cope cut, is then made on the shoulder of the tenon. The

corner resulting when the door is assembled is a crisp line, much like that made by mitered molding. The most economical way for a small shop to make these cuts is with matched coping and sticking cutters for the shaper. Knives can be purchased with standard copes and
stickings already ground and many companies will grind a set to your specifications. I use a single-end tenoner with cope

wooden panel. This is quick and convenient, but impossible to repair. It is best to avoid this method unless the door is going to lead a quiet life in the interior of a mausoleum. Gentle
curves can be glazed with moldings of steamed wood. First, a rabbet is cut with the router, then the glass is bedded in glazing compound, and finally the molding is steamed and put

heads, which is somewhat more cumbersome to set up than the shaper but has the advantage of easily cutting a tenon as long as 3 in. and making the cope at the same time. Also, matching beading and coping bits are available for the router, and one could fashion a set of wooden hand planes to do the job. Skill and patience with hand tools can make a joint as
well as a ton of machinery can, and also will lead one in the direction of simpler, less cluttered designs.

into place. I sometimes make a virtue of the necessity for fasteners to hold the molding and work brass screws into the de-

Relying on sticking to provide the detail on the inside edge

of the frame works well if the panel design is rectangular and raised panels are used. However, when the design includes curved or flat panels, it is often better to eliminate crisp corners by cutting the sticking with a router after the frame is clamped up without the panels. The effect is to soften the corner, draw the eye away from the frame and emphasize the shape of the panels. Although subtle, the difference is important to the overall feeling of the door. Attention is diverted from the outline to the interior, for the most part unconsciously. Generally, soft corners are best suited to less formal designs, although this is not a hard-and-fast rule.
Making use of this detail can be a powerful tool for the designer in trying to achieve a desired effect. Moldings around the panels give a similar effect to

Sticking detail runs full length of stile, left, and matching

cope is cut on shoulder of tenon, right.

conventionally cut sticking, but far more depth and detail are possible. The door can be made up with everything square and the moldings then glued into place. There is a problem here of wood movement, best solved by fastening the molding to the frame, leaving the panels free to expand and contract. Silicone-type glues will stretch a great deal while still holding their bond. Better yet, put the molding around the

Matched sets of shaper cutters make coping and sticking.

panel like a picture frame, with a channel or a tongue on its

outer edge to fit to the door frame. No glue is needed to hold
the panel or the molding in place. Lately I have been experimenting with a molding that is

H-shaped in cross section, with excellent results. The open ends of the H are cut to fit the stiles and rails on one side, and to fit the thickness of the panel on the other. It is difficult for me to say anything really useful about design because only its superficial aspects can be discussed meaningfully. Much nonsense is spoken and written in an attempt to intellectualize style and lump it together with technique. More often than not, good design is a matter of trial and error combined with the designer's ability to
recognize those combinations of color and form that succeed

Panels are commonly held by grooves in rails and stiles, left, or in rabbet by applied molding, right.

Moldings with more depth and detail may be tongue-andgroove, left, or H-shaped in cross section, right.
rectangle whose width is 1.62 times its height; that the exquisite, logarithmically spiralled shell of the chambered
nautilus can be generated with this ratio; that the proportions of some of Leonardo da Vinci's paintings, as well as those of Mondrian, seem to be determined by this ratio. A

and, just as important, those that do not.

A number of design techniques, although they will not

generate successful designs all by themselves, are nonetheless helpful from time to time. One of these techniques is to use a geometric form where possible rather than a free form. Beveled glass takes on a multifaceted gemlike appearance when used in openings that are regular or irregular polygons.
These same polygons around a free-flowing piece of stained

rectangle of this proportion, known as the golden rectangle, is frequently used in art and architecture. It has obvious applications to both doors and casework. Of course we do not want
every rectangle to have these proportions, but it can be helpful to know the relationship.

glass give a visual reference that controls the curves on its interior. I suspect this explains why Art Nouveau was less successful in architecture than it was on a smaller scale. Its paintings were bounded by rectangular frames and its small objects and furniture by rectangular walls. Its architecture had
no regular boundary and consequently appeared grotesque. Descriptions of space will go where they will but the human mind is Euclidean. And why should these geometric devices

These examples do not begin to scratch the surface. They are from one category of one mode of our awareness. That is, they are visual and oriented toward form. Within the visual mode there are also techniques for generating color and texture. And most often neglected are the other senses:
smell, touch and hearing. The interplay and blending of techniques with a material as diverse in its nature as wood allows limitless possibilities for design.

not succeed? Much of the diversity and beauty found in nature has as its foundation the geometric, crystalline structure of inorganic materials. A designer can do a lot worse than to mimic nature. At least it helps avoid appearing contrived.
Another interesting tool comes from the arithmetic series

And yet, when a door or piece of furniture succeeds, it is due to the designer's sensitivity rather than to manipulation and awareness of techniques. In much of the work where the
golden rectangle has been found, the designer was unaware of the mathematics involved; the proportion just looked right. No doubt it is very easy to do a perfectly hideous piece based

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, and so on. These are called Fibonacci numbers and each number in the series is the sum of the two preceding numbers. After the series has progressed for a while, the ratio between any two adjacent numbers stabilizes at 1.618. All this would be only of academic interest if someone had not noticed that the Parthenon fits neatly into a

on the golden rectangle, or on any geometric figure for that matter. Techniques are just toys with which to playthey do not guarantee good design. Good design is simply done, not generated by formula.

The Right Way to Hang a Door

by Tage Frid
When I make a door I first make the doorcase (frame). I make
the inside of the doorcase 3 / 1 6 in. larger in height and width
than the door itself. If the door is to be painted, I allow a little

will begin to droop down. Hinges set as described will allow for
this droop and the door will fit much better throughout the life
of the hinge. It is especially necessary to do this with modern

more for the paint. I bevel the edges of the door a little toward the closing side, so that if dirt or paint should fill up the corners

of the frame, the door will still close tightly.

If I am using two hinges, I place them approximately one-sixth
of the height of the door in to the center of the hinge. With three

stamped and rolled hinges. You can see in old doors that haven't been hung this way the extent to which drooping occurs. When I install the door frame I have all the hardwarehinges,

locks, latchesalready installed in the frame. I use wood shingles

as shims to level the frame and fasten the hinge side first. Then I hang the door into the frame, close it and shim it until I get the spacing I want all the way around the door. Then I fasten the rest

hinges, I center one and move the other two out closer to the top

and bottom. The hinges should be mortised half into the door and half into the frame. Here is where the mortising plane (Fine Woodworking, Fall '77, p. 18) comes in handy, as it will fit into
the lip of the frame. When fitting the hinges to the jamb, inlay the top hinge so

of the frame to the studs on the wall.

If I really want to do it right, I use a door-frame dovetail on all four corners, with the pins in the horizontal pieces. The joint is designed so that when you fit the door you can make the frame

that the door will fit tightly against the jamb when it is closed. But inlay the bottom hinge a little less, so there will be a gap of
1 / 8 in. or so in the back. Setting the hinges this way will leave

narrower or wider without a gap showing. Also, if the door should shrink or expand, I can take the outside molding off and
wedge in or shim out the door frame to fit the door without getting a gap and without having to plane the door and refit the hardware. And this joint is much stronger than the usual method of nailing the corners together.

the whole door cocked at a slight angle, which is much exaggerated in the drawing. The space will not be the same the whole

way around. I do this because as a hinge starts wearing the door

exaggerated for clarity, allows for droop as hinges wear. Door-frame dovetail makes opening adjustable without ugly gaps. Drawing at right
shows joint in widest position; three sections

Door hung askew, here

below show joint going

fully open. Bottom sketch shows how sloping tails on vertical pieces fit undercut between pins.

together, fully closed and

Hanging a Cabinet Door

Swinging with brass butt hinges
by Roger Holmes

anging a cabinet door well is as important as making it wellunsightly gaps, a sloppy fit or a sticky door can ruin the effect of the loveliest wood and most meticulous joinery. You can hang a door with anything from interlocking clenched nails to space-age plastic inserts. Solid, extruded (or drawn) brass butt hinges have a nice look and feel, and I prefer them for most quality work. Accurate layout and a careful, step-by-step approach are essential to making butt hinges work properly, as well as look nice. Although I will describe how to hang a flush door (one hung inside the carcase, flush with the carcase edges), the steps are much the same for butt-hinging other types of doors, too. You may have a little trouble finding extruded hinges. Most hardware store brass hinges are stamped or pressed from a single sheet, and the hinge barrels are bent around the pins. Although these hinges are cheaper than the extruded ones, their leaves are thin and often rattle around the pin. Extruded hinges, made by forcing hot brass through dies shaped to the desired cross-section, are generally heavier, tighter and sturdier than pressed hinges. (Extruded brass hinges in a variety of sizes are available from Garrett Wade, 161 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10013.) Hinges are commonly described by their height and open width, in that order. A 2-in, by 1 in. hinge, therefore, has leaves - i n . wide, measured to the center of the barrel. The width of the hinge needed for each door depends on the thickness of the

door stile and width of the hinging surface on the carcase. You can figure widths on a full-scale drawing or by trying various hinges against the door itself. If you want a rough general rule, double the thickness of the stile (or carcase surface if it's narrower) to get the hinge width. A -in. door, for example, can accommodate a 1 :in.-wide hinge. The barrel protrudes beyond door and carcase, allowing the door to swing open and making room for a stopped mortise, which hides the edge of the hinge from view on the door's inside face. Long hinges give more support, for obvious reasons, but balance length against looksI seldom use hinges longer than 2 in. on all but the largest cabinets. The leaves of extruded hinges can be rectangular in section or tapered. A tapered hinge is lighter for the same strength, but the difference is insignificant for cabinet-sized hinges; there are only minor differences in installation. Most cabinet butts I've found have been tapered. I recommend fixed-pin hinges for cabinet doors; the convenience of loose-pin hinges, which can be disassembled during installation, is outweighed by the sloppy fit of pin to leaves. I use two butt hinges for most cabinet doors, adding a third in the middle of doors over 30 in. high. The position of the top and bottom hinges is mostly a matter of taste. I usually try to line them up in some way with the top and bottom rails of frame-andpanel doors. The middle hinge isn't necessary for strength as much as to keep the center of the hinge stile from moving slight-

ly and binding the door. A center hinge can help to pull a slight bow out of a door, too. The position of the centerline of the pin, which is the pivot point of the hinge, determines how far the door will open, as shown in figure 2. A full-scale section drawing through door, hinge and carcase will help determine hinge positionrotate the hinge on a push-pin pivot to see how far the

for the leaves. Making the mortises half the diameter of the barrel (the centerline of the pin) will bring the stile flush to the carcase.
Shallower mortises give greater clearance. The barrel diameter of

most cabinet-size brass butts is greater than the combined thicknesses of the two tapered leaves. A closed hinge will, therefore,
taper. To make a neat job, I taper the mortises from front to back

door will open.

I think a well-fitted door should show a uniform gap between it and the surrounding carcase. It should open smoothly, without

so that the back edge of the hinge will be flush with the surface.

binding or sticking. For doors that won't expand or contract much with changes in ambient humidity, such as frame-and-panel or veneerecl doors, I shoot for gaps of in. all around; more if I'm

When you build the carcase, make it as square as possible, especially at the door opening. Sight over the carcase or frame around the opening, as you would over winding sticks, to check
for twist, and plane off high spots. Make the door slightly larger

hanging the door during the dry season. The larger the door, the greater the gap should be. You can vary the size of the gap between hinge stile and carcase by varying the depth of the mortises

(at least in. overall) than the opening. Then, regardless of the type of doorframe and panel, veneered, board and batten
make sure it's flat. It's virtually impossible to correct all but the

slightest of twists during hanging. Check for twist by rocking the

door on a flat surface or by sighting over winding sticks. A slight twist can be planed out, but if you find yourself thinning the door down appreciably to remove a twist, make another door. Next, fit the door to the opening. First plane the edge of the door's hinge stile flat and square to the door's face. Try the door
to the opening, pressing the hinge stile against the carcase side

and the bottom rail against the carcase bottom. Plane off the wood necessary to make the bottom rail conform to the carcase.
Try the door to the opening again, then plane the top rail to fit;

repeat for the final stile. The order isn't important, as long as the result is a door that slips into the opening with very little play up
or down. You can plane the door to create the clearance now and

hang the door using shimssmall pieces of card or veneer as thick as the desired gapinserted between door and carcase. I
prefer to hang the door first, then plane for clearance.

After determining the position of the hinges, I mortise the door first. (I'll describe fitting a door flush with the carcase, a
fine gap all around. Alter the marking gauge settings to suit your

taste.) Put the door hinge-stile-up in the vise, set a marking gauge from the edge of the leaf to just shy of the pin centerline.
This locates the pivot point outside the carcase and allows the

door to open 180 (figure 2). Mark the edge of the hinge stile at the hinge locations, running the fence against the outside face of
the door (figure 3). Set another gauge for the mortise depth;

again, just shy of the pin centerline. The amount by which the setting is shy of dead center equals half the finished gap between door and carcase. (Two gauges are useful for hanging a flush door, as the settings are the same for laying out the mortises on the carcase.) Scribe this setting on the face of the door at
the hinge locations. Position the hinge on the door, its long edge

aligned with the first gauge mark and knife against its ends. This ensures a snug fit in the mortisethe ends of few hinges are
exactly square to the edges.

Now chisel out the waste. I carefully score the gauged and knifed lines with a sharp chisel, then make a series of chops, as
shown in figure 4, along the length of the mortise, about in.

from the scored outlines and as near the final depth as possible. The chops break the wood fibers and make it easy to clean to the bottom of the mortise by paring with a wide chisel. Finally, slice
down to establish the outline and try the hinge in place.

I fix the hinge through only one hole at this time, in case it needs adjusting later. Centering screws in hinge holes can be
terribly frustrating, particularly in open-grained woods. I posi-

tion the hole with a carefully placed awl and a steady hand. Deepen the hole with the awl when the position is right, to keep
the pilot-hole bit from wandering. I place the screw just off-cen-

ter toward the back of the mortise, so it will pull the hinge tight.
It is prudent to use steel screws during fitting. Brass screws have an infuriating tendency to twist off; steel screws prepare the way

for the final installation with brass screws, thereby avoiding

much gnashing of teeth.

Next, fold the hinges shut and slip the door into the carcase;

the lock stile won't go in all the way because of the hinges.
Knife the positions of the hinges on the carcase side (figure 5).
If you've already planed for clearance, place the shims before knifing. Remove the door and gauge the mortise width and

depth on the carcase. Align the hinge with the knifed position marks and knife the mortise ends, as for the door. It's most convenient to chop and pare the mortises with the carcase side supported on the workbench. Now screw the door to the carcase, one screw to a leaf. I plane

clearance on the lock stile first, beveling the edge back from the front to allow for the radius of the swing. Then plane top and bottom rails. You'll probably have the doors on and off two or
three times to do this, so remember to use the steel screws. Uni-

or veneer shims. You make a slight twist in a door less noticeable by adjusting the width of a mortise. If, for example, the bottom of the lock stile is set farther back from the carcase edge
than the top is, widen the top carcase hinge mortise. This will

form gaps make a single door look good and a row of doors look even belter, so it's worth a little extra trouble. Though attractive, simple and durable, butt hinges aren't built for adjustment. Vertical movement is impossible without plugging screw holes and extending mortises. You can adjust the gaps by packing out one or more hinge mortises with paper, card

pull the top of the hinge stile in and push the bottom of the lock
stile out. This is just a balancing technique, evening the twist out

around the door; it can't be relied upon to take the twist out of
the door.

Roger Holmes is an associate editor of Fine Woodworking.

Router mortising Soss hinges

by C.B. Oliver

Soss invisible multi-leaf hinges, which have been used by commercial cabinetmakers for years, can be a good choice if you don't want to clutter up an understated design with exposed hardware. Soss hinges range in size from -in.-dia. cylinders to 5 -in. long hinges for entry doors, and even the smallest are extremely strong. (Soss provides a chart for proper hinge selection.) In addition to doors, Soss hinges can be used for table leaves and desk tops, boxes and so on. Also, the hinge bodies are radiused, so no followup chisel work is needed if you mortise with a router or a drill press. Plunge routers are real slick for installing Soss hinges. For flush-door faceframe construction, I mill the hinge mortises in the hinge stiles of both door and frame before gluing up, as shown in the drawing. To allow for inaccuracies, make the door a little larger than the opening, then plane it to fit once you've hung it. You could make up a mortising jig similar to the one Tage Frid wrote about in FWW #30, but the fence on any good plunge router will work fine as a guide. (Soss includes a template to position the hinges in from the door and frame faces.) I clamp the door stile to the carcase side or face rail face-side-out, then mount this entire assembly in a bench vise. Rout in two steps by making a deep, short mortise for the hinge body, and a shallower, longer one for the mounting flange. The bit radius must match the ra-

dius of the hinge flange you're using. With the router's fence held firmly against the stock, mill the deeper mortise first. Keep the bit from wandering by always moving the router against its rotation. The length of the deep mortise is not critical; in fact, if it's a little too long, final fitting is easier. Place the hinges in the deep mortises, position them where you want them, and mark the position of the mounting-flange ends with a knife. Set the router to the flange thickness and mill the longer mortise. Instead of devising stop blocks to fix the length, I "creep up" on the marks. Work slowlyit is a lot easier to lengthen the mortise than it is to shorten it. The method shown here will also work with routers that do not have built-in plunge mechanisms. Mill the deeper mortise in two or three passes by holding the router's fence against the work and lowering the bit slowly at an angle until the base rests firmly on the edges of both clamped parts. To ease the cutting load, you can waste most of the mortise on a drill press or with a portable drill guided by a dowel jig.

C.B. Oliver makes furniture in Nottingham, N.H. Soss hinges are available from Builders Specialty & Hardware Corp., 26 Weston Ave., P.O. Box 325, West Somerville, Mass. 02144, or you can write Soss directly at Box 8200, Detroit, Mich. 48213.

A case of dowels, dovetails and tenons

by John McAlevey

Two-Door Credenza

ost of my furniture designs begin as simple sketches. I draw on a regular basis, sometimes entire pieces, other times just certain curves or details. When finished, I date the drawings and stack them with drawings from previous sessions. Then, when I need ideas, I rip through the stack. The two-door credenza shown here began that way. I was asked to build the credenza as a companion piece to a South American mahogany conference table I had made for a law firm's library. When I dug out my first drawings of the table, the rough sketches showed how I had experimented with slight curves, plain round edges and large overhangs as I designed. I knew the credenza would need similar curves and an overhanging top for it to relate visually to the table. I like to plan all my joinery and construction details before I even touch the wood. After rough-sketching the credenza, for example, I made a complete set of working drawings, including joinery details. Since this credenza has a top that overhangs the sides, I couldn't use dovetails, my usual method for casework, to join the corners. I knew I could have added an applied top to overhang the dovetailed case, but this seemed a waste of wood. Stub tenons would have worked, but they seemed a waste of time. So, I began to rethink my ideas on joinery. Why not mix traditional joints, like dovetails and mortises and tenons, with production-oriented joints, like dowels or plate joints? These joinery

combinations would save time while maintaining the structural integrity of the piece. For example, I planned to dowel the top to the case, and to have a frame-and-panel back. The back would sit in rabbets in the sides of the case, but I did not wish to rabbet it into the top for two reasons. First, I thought it would put unnecessary racking strain on the dowel joints, and second, I wanted to overlap the top at the back a little bit, and thought that a rabbet here would look unattractive. The solution was a dovetailed back stretcher to which I could screw the back. Through mortises and wedged tenons could fasten the bottom stretchers to the sides, as well as add a nice design feature. I could simply plate-join the bottom panel to the sides to keep this joint tight, and then use cabinetmaker's buttons, as shown in the detail on the facing page, to fasten the bottom panel to the stretchers. Since the conference table was made of South American mahogany, I used mahogany to build the credenza. I like the wood's grain and color. There are few knots and checks, and little sapwood. I view wood's figure as a beautiful landscape, and as I cut it into parts and edge-match pieces, I try to get the grain to reflect the abstract view of a hilly countryside. For this project, I cut the door's two center stiles from the same board so the grain would match across the gap. I prepared the stock for all parts shown in the drawing at once and labeled each piece so I could keep track of the grain patterns and orientations. I milled the slab sides and the credenza top from 6/4 stock and the bottom panel, stretchers, doors and back panel from 4/4 stock. Building the carcaseThe squarer a carcase is, the easier the pieces will fall into place, the better the glue joints will hold and the less time it will take to build and fit doors and panels. I follow a logical order in doing joinery, beginning with the joints that will govern how square the rest of the carcase will be. Here's an overview of the process: When building the credenza, I cut the through mortises in the sides and then cut tenons in the mating stretchers. The large shoulders on the tenons make these joints easiest to square. After cutting the tenons, I ripped slots inside the stretchers for the cabinetmaker's buttons. Then, after dry-assembling the sides and stretchers, I cut the bottom to size, routed the rabbet for the back and dovetailed the blind stretcher across the top. I used my mortising machine as a horizontal borer to dowel the sides. Normally, I do mortises on this machine as well, but the sides were too heavy and awkward to clamp to the machine. It was easier to cut them with my plunge router. I installed the stock fence guide and an Inca, -in. slot mortise miller bit (available from Precision Woodwork Machines, Mount Tabor Avenue, Danby Vil-

allowed the author to build this credenza economically while maximizing structural integrity.
42 Fine Woodworking

Combining traditional and production joining techniques

I used the standard 90 fence on my plate joiner to cut the kerfs

in the ends of the bottom panel. To cut matching kerfs in the

sides, I removed the stock fence from my plate joiner and used a
board clamped to the case side as a fence. These plate joints deserve careful layout and precise cutting,

because the case bottom must align with the tops of the stretchers. If things don't work out exactly, there are two cures: You can
plane down the tops of the stretchers, or you can reshape the tenons slightly so the wedges will drive the stretchers up.

If you don't have a plate joiner, substitute

-in. by

-in.

A temporary glue-up stick attaches over the dowels at the top to keep the sides from toeing in or out as glue dries.
lage, Vt. 05739; 802-293-5195) in my router. The Inca bit plunges deeper than a spiral-flute end-mill bit and leaves a cleaner mortise.

wooden splines for the plates. Dry-assemble as above, then mark the location for the splines. After disassembly, clamp a straightedge on the side as a fence and rout a -in.-wide by -in.-deep slot

in the side, stopping 1 in. short of the front and back edges. Rout
the other side, and then rout matching slots in the ends of the

I began by carefully marking the mortise location, then clamping a scrap of poplar underneath to prevent tearout. Next, I ran the router fence along the edge of the wood and plunge-routed the mortise from the outside in three or four passes, bringing the

bottom panel. The next step is to lay out and bandsaw the curves in the
stretchers, sides and top. Drawing the gentle curves is easy when using spline weights and a spline. (For more information on

bit to the marked edge of the mortise.

I cut the tenons on my tablesaw, first crosscutting the shoulders, then standing the piece on end in a tenoning jig to cut

splines, see the sidebar on the facing page.) These curves are not necessarily segments of a circle, but can be varied to complement the overall design. Along the same lines, I prefer not to use
standard router-bit profiles when rounding edges. On the underside of the top, for example, although I began with a chamfering bit and pilot bearing, I finished the job with files, planes and scrapers. This allowed me to maintain the feeling of the top's curve in the edge profile. Before glue-up, I finish-sanded the pieces on my stroke sander.

the cheeks. I filed the tenon cheeks round to match the radius of the mortises instead of chopping the mortises square to match
the tenons. It's not necessary to match the radii exactly. The

tenons will expand slightly to fill the mortises as you drive the wedges in. To accept the wedges, I handsawed two slots down
each tenon to a depth of in. from the shoulders. I then drilled -in.-dia. holes in the bottom of each slot to prevent splitting

and to permit the slot to open fully during wedging. To give contrast to the joint, I made rosewood wedges, 1 in. long, tapering
down from about in. to a featheredge.

Gluing up the cabinetThe final glue-up of a cabinet can be one of those all-at-once procedures where everything goes very right or very wrong. I planned to slow things down a bit by gluing the cabinet in two steps: first the sides, stretchers and bottom

Next, I routed rabbets on the inside edges of the sides and on

the bottom panel so I could fit the back. I cut the rabbet with a spiral end-mill bit and the same fence I used to rout the side

panel, with the top being applied only after the other parts had dried. Gluing up in two steps would not only let me check for
square twice, it would also allow me enough time to apply glue carefully, thus reducing squeeze-out.

mortises. Because the rabbet in the bottom panel goes all the way across, I routed it first. The rabbets in the sides are stopped flush
with the rabbet in the bottom panel. Rather than measuring to locate the bottom of the rabbets in the sides, I assembled the

In order for step one to work, though, I had to come up with a

way to keep the sides from toeing in or out at the top-front corners as the glue dried. As a solution, I fashioned a temporary

sides to the stretchers and placed the rabbeted bottom panel in

the carcase. Then, I marked a line on each side flush with the rabbet in the bottom panel. After disassembling the carcase, I

glue-up stick to fasten between the sides (see the photo above, left). I drilled dowel holes in the sides to accommodate the top,
then placed dowels in the first hole of each side. I then drilled holes in the glue-up stick at each end and slipped the stick over

routed the rabbets just short of the lines. To achieve the neatest joint where the rabbets met, I planned to wait until the carcase
was glued to square up the ends of each rabbet with a chisel. Before blind-dovetailing the stretcher, I reassembled and

the two dowels. The holes in the stick must be carefully spaced to hold the sides square: If the holes are not far enough apart, the
sides will toe in; if they're too far apart, they'll toe out.

squared the carcase. I then measured between the two sides and
added another er. The extra in. to determine the total length of the stretchin. is for -in. dovetails at both ends. I

When gluing up, it's important to drive the wedges into the through tenons before the glue sets. After the glue dries, remove
the clamps and glue-up stick. Before going to step two of the

ripped the stretcher

in. wide, then crosscut it to length

before cutting one full and one half dovetail pin at each end of the stretcher, as shown in the detail in figure 1. The purpose of

glue-up, dowel holes must be drilled in the top. To mark the locations for the holes, place dowel centers in the holes in the
sides. Locate the top on the centers so that it overlaps the corners at the front and the back equally. Press down hard enough

the half-pin, of course, is to avoid undercutting the rabbet for the back. I cut the pins on my bandsaw, then marked matching sockets in the sides while holding the back of the stretcher flush with the back of each rabbet. I then sawed and chopped the waste

for the centers to mark the top, then bore at each mark. After drilling the holes in the top, glue the dowels in place and clamp
the top to the carcase.

from the sockets and test-fit the stretcher in place.

Next, I rested the bottom panel on the stretchers and lightly clamped the sides to be sure that the length of the bottom was

Making the doors and back panelYou don't often see a

cabinet with a frame-and-panel back anymore, but I decided to
install a finished back for two reasons. First, it added versatility to the credenza. Having an attractive back means the piece can be

correct. With all the parts lined up, I marked the edges of the bottom panel and the side. These marks would be the reference
points for laying out the plate joints. With the case disassembled,

used away from the wall. Second, since the credenza has no

Laying out curves

A lot of my furniture has curved edges, which lend a subtle simplicity to my designs. But drawing large, smooth curves can be difficult. I solved this problem when I learned about splines and spline weights architects often

the photo at left, I marked a line at midpoint along the front edge of the top. Next, I penciled marks in. back from the front edge on each side and

placed the spline weights near those

use. They are available from Charrette,

burn, Mass. 01888; (617) 935-6010 or

(212) 683-8822 in New York. The spline is nothing more than a -in.-wide strip of clear plastic. Spline weights are cast, felt-bottom

31 Olympia Ave., P.O. Box 4010, Wo-

under a spline-weight hook, placed a

marks. I put each end of my oak spline

weights with hooks in their ends to

hold the spline. Pulling or pushing on

the spline after each end is hooked in a smooth arc, which can then be easily

spline weight bends the spline in a

followed by a pencil. Each spline weight costs about $14. Four splines are available in lengths of 23 in., 35 in., 47 in. and 59 in.

Because splitting shallow curves requires very little bending, you can substitute a narrow strip of oak for the plastic spline. That's what I did to mark

They range in price from $3 to $7.

finger on the spline at the point where I had marked the center, and then pulled the spline to the edge. While doing this, I moved each spline weight so the ends of the spline lined up with the marks on each side. With everything aligned, I ran my pencil along the spline to transfer the curve to the top. With minor variations, I used this same procedure to mark all the curves on the edges of the credenza. For instance, because I wanted the curves in the sides of the top to arc more heavily toward the front, I pulled the front us in front and pushed the rear spline weight forward to open up the radius in the back. To make the tighter concave curve at the bottom of each side, I used a short plastic spline and pushed it away from the edge to form the arc. J.M.

spline weight back to tighten the radi-

the credenza's top.

front of the credenza, as I'm doing in

To lay out the curved edge in the

an oak spline to lay out the curve in the

The author uses his spline weights and

top front of the credenza.

drawers or shelves, you're likely to see the inside of the back when the doors are open, unless the credenza is chock-full. The stile-and-rail frames for the doors and back are of standard haunched mortise-and-tenon construction. To raise the door panels, I sharply radiused the edges in the front of each panel with a -in.-radius cove bit in a router mounted in my tablesaw extension. I stood the panel vertically and guided it against the tablesaw fence. Because the edge was fairly thick, and my cuts

the panel on the back with brass flat-head wood screws. To keep the doors closed, I installed simple magnetic catches to the underside of the top.

I agonized over where to put the door handles. If I mounted

them at midpoint on the stiles, they would balance the look of the credenza but would obstruct the beautiful figure that continued across the door gap. I finally decided to tuck the handles up under the top where they would be unobtrusive and easy to

were shallow, I didn't take the trouble to use an extra-high fence, which would have provided more support and made the work

reach without bending down. To make the handles, I roughed a long blank on my tablesaw, cut the handles to length, then

much safer and easier.

I also raised the backs of the door panels slightly. I set the tablesaw blade to 15 and again held the panel vertically against the
fence. I made the panels in the back from -in. stock. Instead of raising these, I rabbeted the edges to create a centered tongue to fit the frame. After scraping and sanding, I gave each panel one coat of Watco oil, front and back, to keep it from adhering to its

smoothed the surfaces with files and block plane. In the past, I
had simply mortised this sort of handle in place, but I found the tenons on the handles occasionally broke off. So, on this credenza, in addition to mortising the handles, I fastened them with
screws from the back. I never put less than three coats of oil on a piece I've made, but there are times when I apply many more: It all depends on

frame during glue-up.

how long the piece hangs around the shop. I apply the first coat
of oil and let it dry for a few days. Between subsequent coats, I

Finishing the credenzaBecause I sanded the carcase pieces

on my stroke sander before glue-up, the only sanding left to do was on the frames of the doors and back. Machine-sanding certain
components gives them a sanded-to-death look. I find this to be especially true of the frames surrounding raised panels, because there are so many lines that must remain parallel or square to

rub down the wood with 0000 steel wool. Before delivery, I apply a coat of Watco satin wax. There's a secret advantage to using Watco oil and wax. Clients will be bound to call me some day complaining of a scratch, expecting me to drive to their home or office to make a repair. It's
certainly easier to explain that they can not only do the repair

each other. As such, I spent a lot of time scraping and hand-sand-

themselves with products available at any hardware store, but

they can also maintain the finish with ease.

ing the door frames to give them crisp, sharp lines. Once that was done, I mortised the doors and sides for the
brass butt hinges, made and installed door handles and fastened

John McAlevey designs and builds furniture in Franklin, N.H.

Doors can significantly affect the appearance of a cabinet. A simple frame and flat panel are perfect for showing off the wildly flame-figured panel of this door.

A frame-and-glass-panel door turns a storage cabinet into a display cabinet. Glass provides a view of the contents, and three drawers hide behind the solid lower panel.

Five options dramatically change a basic box

by Christian Becksvoort

Doors Make the Difference

Hand-carved panels create an interesting textural effect in an otherwise plain door. Dividing the door horizontally makes the cabinet look shorter and wider.

A vertical center stile and thin, recessed panels give this cabinet a tall, narrow appearance. Quarter-round moldings are an easily added detail.

Carved, flush panels separated by a vertical stile add texture to the long, lean look. This combination of styles became the author's favorite door.

he most obvious feature of many wall cabinets, kitchen cabinets or even freestanding cabinets is the doors. By changing the style of the door, you can subtly or significantly alter the appearance of the cabinet, as I found on a recent job when I ended up making five different doors for the same carcase. I wanted to design a simple wall cabinet that mounts on a hidden hanger (see the box on p. 52) and that would function in a variety of settings. I started with a basic box for the carcase, as shown in the drawing on p. 53, with the idea of making the door the main attraction.

I carefully selected quartersawn stock for the frame material for this door (and all subsequent doors) to minimize movement. For the single, flat and flush panel, I used a wildly flame-figured cherry board given to me by a friend. Once oiled and polished, the figure seemed to leap off the panel, as shown in the photo at right on the facing page. The simple frame-andpanel construction (see the drawing on p. 53) was the perfect showcase for this magnificent piece of wood. As I stood admiring my handiwork, I began to wonder, what if...? One idea led to another, and soon I was at work on door

number two. For this door, I decided to divide it horizontally with a center rail, yielding two stacked, flat-flush panels, as shown in the drawing on p. 53. The results were okay, but compared to the incredible figure in the first door, door number two seemed rather plain. It needed something to set it apart. After a little midnight inspiration, I took a carving gouge to the panels and textured their front faces, as shown in the photo at left. This was a simple but time-consuming process that required some care and a sharp gouge, especially around the edges to avoid tearout. The oiled, carved facets gave the panels a nice

three-dimensional look, but I couldn't help wondering if the door might not look better divided vertically. Thus I began door number three. This door has a vertical center stile and two thin, flat, book-matched panels (see the drawing on the facing page). I framed the panels with -in.-wide quarter round moldings to add some detailing and to create an entirely different look, as shown in the center photo on p. 51 An alternative method would be to shape or rout the stiles and molding into the rails. But this requires more complicated joinery to assemble the door frames. Door number four was a combination of doors two and three. Door four had vertical panels as in door three, but the panels

Adjustable shelves and drawers with

carved pulls enhance the simple features of the dovetailed carcase. Also shown is the routed finger pull used on the carved, flush panel door.

were flat, flush and carved as in door two (see the drawing on the facing page). I really liked the tall, thin, clean lines of this door, as shown in the photo at right on p. 51 To accentuate the look, I did away with the knob and routed a finger pull on

favorite door so far, but what if...? To give the piece a bit more versatility, I decided to make one last door. Door number five is glass paneled (see the drawing on the facing page) to serve as a display cabinet. A single piece of glass set in the mortised-and-tenoned frame provides an unobstructed view of the cabinet's contents, as shown in the photo at left on p. 50. A small, quartersawn, horizontal panel at the bottom of the door covers three drawers (see the photo at left). Carved pulls recessed in drawer fronts maximize interior drawer space. At this point, I decided to stop making doors. Although I hadn't yet made the standard raised-panel or gotten into complex carved lattices, end-grain or stainedglass panels, I now had four more carcases to build for my door collection. One has to
quit somewhere.

the edge of the door frame. This was my

furnituremaker in New Gloucester, Maine.

tor to Fine Woodworking and a custom

Christian Becksvoort is a contributing edi-

Hidden cabinet hangers

To avoid interfering with the clean lines of my wall cabinet, I chose a hidden hanging system for mounting the cabinet to the wall. I used a variation of a French cleat. A French cleat is a sys-

The cleats are easily screwed to the wall and cabinet; then it's

balance a wall cabinet with one hand while trying to drive a couple of screws through the cabinet's mounting strip and into the wall with the other hand knows how difficult this task can be. A French cleat makes hanging wall cabinets a breeze.

tem that uses interlocking beveled cleats, one cleat screwed to the cabinet back and the other cleat screwed to the wall, as shown in the drawing at right. Anyone who has ever tried to

a simple matter to press the cabinet against the wall and slide it

down so that the cabinet's cleat interlocks with the wall-hung cleat. Recessing the cabinet back an extra in. completely hides the hanging system.
Normally, the wall cleat spans at least two studs and is anchored in a couple of places. Because my cabinet is only 14 in. wide, I was able to screw into only one stud. A single screw into the usual narrow wall cleat would allow the cabinet to swivel on the wall but might not offer sufficient support for the cabinet and its contents. My solution was to make a T-cleat, as shown in the drawing at right. The bottom of the T is tenoned into the wall cleat and extends down the wall another 17 in., providing plenty of extra space for screwing the cleat to a single stud. Be sure to level the cleat when screwing it to the wall. After screwing the top cleat to the cabinet-back frame, the cabinet is ready to drop into place on the wall cleat. As a safety
feature, I also add a small brass screw through the panel back

one small screw support that cabinet?

into the hanger. This keeps the cabinet from being lifted off accidentally and inspires wonder in the uninformed: How can

C.B.

Five doors to dress up the basic box

Pick a catch that fits the cabinet

Keeping Doors Closed

bv Christian H. Becksvoort

handsome cabinet door, hung precisely in its

frame, is a pleasure to

use. But the door isn't quite finished until it's been fitted with a proper catch. There sure are plenty of choices, from simple turn buttons to elaborate library catches. The hard part is picking the catch that's appropriate. What's appropriate? A catch that is in keeping with the period, style and function of the cabinet. Brass bullet catches, for instance, would look out of place on an Arts-and-Crafts piece with hand-wrought

iron hinges and knobs. Likewise, high-end furniture is no place for plastic-encased magnets or for steel touch latches that are stamped out by the carload. Catches have functional as well as aesthetic differences, and some catches work better than others on certain kinds of doors. And like everything else, door catches vary in price. Their cost in relation to a piece of furniture is very small, though, so it makes

et engages and holds the door closed. Then, when tapped or touched, the ratchet releases, and the spring mechanism pushes the door open. Unlike a mechanical latch, a magnetic touch latch

sense to choose exactly the right one. To help you sort through some of the choices, I have taken a look at a dozen of the most popular door catches. They "include commercially available catches and locks (see the sources of supply box on p. 88), as well as mechanisms built in the shop. In addition to trying these different catches for single doors, I've also found some interesting ways to keep double doors closed, especially in those difficult situations where there is no center divider
between the doors.

Magnetic catches
Magnetic catches come in a variety of sizes and shapes and can be used for single or double doors. For large doors, magnetic catches often are used in pairsat the top and bottom of the door. Most

(see the photo above) uses a magnet on the end of a spring-loaded plunger. Both types require in. to in. of clearance between the door and the doorstop. I find these latches gimmicky. I use them only on doors that don't get much use, such as secret-compartment panels, because

they tend to wear out faster than other types of catches.

Bullet catches
Bullet catches (see the drawing and the photo below) should be used at the top and bottom of doors. These catches have a few drawbacks. They require fine-tuning, they're sensitive to any sea-

magnetic catches are housed in plastic, which I find objectionable

for high-end work. However, there are some small, round magnets (see the photos above) that mount in holes drilled directly

into a door stop or a fixed shelf. This neat installation is more appropriate for better-quality cabinets. Nevertheless, I still don't care for magnetic latches. They're generally ugly, they sound clunky and they can be difficult to fine-tune for just the right amount of holding power.

Touch latches
Touch latches, both mechanical and magnetic, are used most often on kitchen and bathroom cabinets. They also can be used for shop

and office furniture. Mechanical touch latches operate with a ratchet and a spring mechanism. When closing the door, the ratch-

sonal changes in the dimensions of the door, and they can't handle warps in the door very well. Even so, they are among my favorite catches because they're unobtrusive and work so well when adjusted correctly. Bullet catches made by Brusso are undoubtedly the best. They are the only ones that have a groove in

the strike (or keep) to allow the door to move seasonally. Most other bullet catches have a dimple in the strike, which doesn't al-

low any seasonal door movement. It is standard procedure to mount the bullets in the case frames and the strikes on the top and bottom of the door stile. This way, the bullets wear grooves on the inside edges of the door as opposed to the outside edges of the

shim that will draw the door tighter as the spinner closes. Thin plastic washers between the spinner and door and the knob shoulder and door virtually eliminate friction.

case frame where they would be visible. Nothing sounds better than the click of a well-adjusted bullet catch. But these closures can be difficult to adjust and only should be used on small to mid-sized, perfectly flat doors because of their limited holding power. Bullets are appropriate for contemporary furniture as well as shop and office use.

Double-ball catches
A variation of the bullet catch is the double-ball catch (see the photo below). This two-part catch consists of a contoured metal strike that pops between a pair of spring-loaded ball bearings.

Spinners
Spinners, also called turn buttons or button latches, have a wide range of applications. There are two basic types: exterior and interior. They are low-tech, virtually foolproof and work well in keep-

This is a relatively recent innovation that permits some door movement, allows the holding power to be adjusted and keeps

doors from sagging in the closed position. A word of warning when using double-ball catches: Never

mount them in a horizontal position when using solid-wood doors. When mounted vertically, the strike can slide side to side between the two ball bearings, providing in. to in. of movement. However, because there is only in. or so between the strike and the ball housings, mounting this catch horizontally allows for no door movement. Double-ball catches can be particularly difficult to install on single-door cabinets, but they're well-suited to high-end furniture because the holding power can be adjusted for just the right feel when opening the door.
ing slightly warped doors closed. An exterior spinner (see the top photo) consists of a small (usually in. to 2 in. long) bar with a hole in the center to take a screw. Spinners are mounted on the face frame next to the door stile. In the horizontal position, the spinner holds the door closed. Turned vertically, the door can be opened.

Key locks
Standard key locks (see the photo below) also can be used to
keep doors closed, with or without any other kind of catch. These are most appropriate for little-used doors requiring extra security,

Commercially made spinners usually are brass. Shopmade models can be made of wood. Victorian spinners often had brass backing plates to eliminate wear. Simple spinners are great for shop cabinets; more elaborate versions suit certain period pieces. Interior spinners (see the bottom photos above) work on the same principle, but they are attached inside the door to the shaft of the door knob. Brass knobs have metal spinners threaded onto the shaft and usually locked in place with a small screw. Wooden knobs have shopmade spinners, usually oval in shape, which are pinned or screwed to the shaft to prevent them from slipping. Cabinets with full face frames are ideal for spinners because the spinner can catch directly behind the frame. Cabinets without face frames require a small groove in the cabinet side for the spinner to lock into. If there is any play between spinner and face frame (or spinner and groove), you can glue in a small tapered

because the key must be used each time to open and close the door. Either full- or half-mortise locks can be used. If I go to the trouble of installing a key lock, I use a good onea three-, four- or even six-lever or tumbler lock. The cheap, single-lever locks aren't worth the effort to install because they can be opened with just a piece of bent wire. On the positive side, a key lock is an attractive
visual touch on a cabinet; the downside is that they take time and

Library catchesAnother approach to latching double doors is

a library catch (see the drawing and photo below). This unusual piece of hardware is simple to use once it is properly mortised into the cabinet. It consists of a baseplate with a spring-loaded lever
below. When both doors are closed, the right (or active) door forces a rod down, pushing another rod on the opposite side of

the lever up into the left (fixed) door. The left door remains fixed

patience to install correctly.

Closing double doors

Double doors with a center divider can be treated just like single doors. When no divider (or fixed shelf) is present, keeping double doors closed becomes more challenging. The first and easiest

choice for inset doors is bullet catches because the catches are

mounted above and below the doors and don't need to grab a fixed divider to work. Another approach I often use is to anchor or fix one door (usually the left one) in place. Then I use it to incorporate one of the
catches mentioned in this article to keep the second door closed.

only as long as the right door is closed. As soon as the right door
is opened, the spring retracts the rod and releases the fixed door.

How do you anchor a door? There are three simple and readily available pieces of hardware that can be used. One of the easiest to install is a surface-mounted elbow catch (see the photo above) that is screwed to the inside of the door, either at the top, bottom

or under a fixed shelf. Available in a variety of qualities, these

catches can suit everything from a shop-grade cabinet to really high-end work. Another option for anchoring a door is a pair of surface-mounted sliding bolts screwed to the inside of the door, one at the top and the other at the bottom. Holes need to be drilled into the top
door stop and into the bottom shelf-door stop for the bolt barrel.

To hold the right door closed, use one of the catches suitable for single doors. For medium and large cabinet doors, a library catch should be installed top and bottom. Clearances above and below the door must be kept to less than in., or the rods will not engage the door. Library catches are a relatively new type of closure that I've used only a few times. Both my customers and I have been pleased with the results.

Chris Becksvoort builds custom furniture in New Gloucester, Maine, and is a contributing editor to Fine Woodworking.

Brass plates mortised into the front edges of the stops make a neat, clean installation. Surface bolts should be sized appropriately for the door. I like solid-brass bolts, even on high-end cabinets. The third method is a little more costly and time-consuming, but

Sources of supplyI've used the following companies and found they offer good-quality

products and excellent service. There are plenty of other sources for
quality hardware as well (see FWW #112, pp. 68-73).

looks more elegant. Flush bolts are mortised into the top and bottom edges of the door stiles. Then latching holes are drilled into the case top and bottom. For solid doors, these holes actually should be elongated slots to allow for door movement. I would use these closures only on top-end cabinets because installation
is labor intensive. Once one door can be locked in place (I usually pick the left

Larry & Faye Brusso Co., 4865 Highland Road, Suite J, Waterford, MI 48328; (810) 674-8458
Garrett Wade Inc., 161 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013; (800) 221-2942

Whitechapel Ltd., PO Box 136, Wilson, WY 83014; (800) 468-5534

The Woodworkers' Store, 21801 Industrial Blvd., Rogers, MN 55374;

(800) 279-4441

one), it can be treated more or less like a divider. I often use an interior wooden spinner on the knob of the other door.

Woodworker's Supply, Inc., 1108 N. Glenn Road, Casper, WY 82601;

(800) 645-9292

Install butt hinges carefully for a precise, non-binding fit

by Philip C. Lowe

Hanging a Cabinet Door

Begin with the bottom. This edge, planed clean and square, becomes the reference point for the fitting and hanging to follow.
68 Fine Woodworking Photos: William Duckworth

t's the simple pleasures that make my day. Fabricating a pair of doors, mortising them for good-quality butt hinges and then installing the doors so they function without binding all add up to one of those simple pleasures in furnituremakinga door that's hung right. Real technological advances have been made in hinges in the past 20 years. For cabinetwork, you can choose butt hinges of stamped sheet brass bent around a steel pin, hinges of extruded material milled to shape and fitted with either fixed or loose pins, cast hinges milled with stops, hinges with one leaf longer than the other, or hinges with and without finials. For more on these choices and where you can get them, see FWW #112, pp. 68-73. All of them, though, depend on careful installation for smooth operation.

Choose before you build The best time to select hinges for any project is in the design phase. Here are some of the questions you should ask: Is the hinge strong enough to support the weight of the door? Where and how will the hinges be installed? How many hinges do you need? How thick is the material the hinges will be set into? What size screws will you need to secure the hinges? Will those screws have, enough holding power? For casework, like the cabinet shown in the bottom right photo on p. 72, you will Set the marking gauge for the thinnest Score hinge locations with the have to decide whether you want the layout knife. No shop should be part of the leaf. With extruded hinges, an without this knife; it provides a even spacing between the two leaves will be doors to have an overlay or an inset design precision unmatched by a pencil just right if the hinges are mortised to the (meaning that they fit within the frame of or a scratch awl. depth of the thinnest part of the hinge. the case, as I did with this one). With an inset design, the thickness of the door will determine the size of the hinge. With an overlay design, the thickness of the case, or face frame, will dictate the width of the hinge leaf. Butt-hinge meet the side of the case squarely, I can do one of two things: eisizes are specified by their length and their width in the open pother plane the edge of the door to follow the line of the case or, if sition, which includes the width of both leaves plus the knuckle. that would take off too much of the stile, plane the bottom of the door on one side or the other to square up the fit. Once the bottom Fit the door on three sides first and hinge edges look good, I plane the top edge as necessary to A pair of inset doors will function well only if they fit the opening maintain a consistent -in. gap along the width of the door. of the case with enough clearance not to bind; in. on all sides is ideal for most cabinet doors. After the doors are assembled (I Locating the hinges on the door make them a little oversized), I fit them to the case, leaving the two The placement of the hinge will vary with the design of the door. edges that meet in the middle. Those are trimmed later. I usually align the top of the upper hinge and the bottom of the I start by planing the bottom of the door in both directions to lower hinge with the inside lines of the top and bottom rails. But avoid tearout on the edges of the stiles (see the photo at left). I find with these doors, I thought the upper hinge would look better or make some -in. shims, place them on the case bottom and set centered on the small top panels. the door on top of them to check the fit, as shown in the top phoUsing a square and a knife, I scribe lines on the edge of the stile to above. I pay attention to the stile on the hinge side. If it doesn't to indicate the top of the upper hinge and the bottom of the lower

Dry-fit with -in. shims under the door. Check and adjust the hinge stile next and the top after that. The joint between the doors is the last edge to befit.

Feather cuts against the grainStriking

these chisel blows first makes removing the waste easier.

Paring strokes remove the waste. By working to a scribed line, the author cuts a clean mortise in a few easy strokes.

Mortising into the door stileThe author begins the mortising process by cutting a sawkerf just shy of his knife line.

Final chops to size This last chisel cut on the ends of the mortise for the door stile will make a snug fit for the hinge.

hinge (see the bottom left photo on p. 69). With the door held in a vise, I place each hinge on the edge of the door, tight to the scribed lines, and then use the knife to mark the corner at the other end of each hinge. I transfer those marks with a square across the edge of the stile. At this point, for a good custom fit, I usually number each hinge and door so I won't get any of the hinges mixed up later (you'll find minor variations even in hinges that look identical). I use a pencil to extend the scribed lines to the face of the door. These lines give start and stop marks that keep me from scratching in a line past where the mortise will be cut. I set a marking gauge to the thickness of the hinge leaf (see the bottom right photo on p. 69) and scribe a line along the face of the door between the two pencil marks.
As long as the width of the hinge leaf is the same or even a little

Cutting the mortises in the door

less than the thickness of the door stile, I mortise all the way across the edge. I use a dovetail saw to make a relief cut about in. away from the scribed lines, down to the depth of the markinggauge line, as shown in the photos above. With a wide chisel, I chop a series of feather cuts across the edge of the stile, taking care not to go below the scribed line. Then I pare away the waste. For the final depth cut, I place the chisel in the marking-gauge
line, flat side down, and cut across the stile. To finish, I place the

chisel vertically into the scribed knife lines at the top and bottom

of each hinge and chop out the little bit of remaining waste.

Self-centering bit finds the hole. This bit, with the hinge held firmly where it belongs, locates pilot holes for the screws.

Mortising into the caseThe author follows the same procedures as he did for the door-stile mortises. He starts with

scribed knife lines (left) and follows that with relief cuts made with the hacksaw (right).

With the door in place, mark the hinge locations for the case. After the doors are fit and hinged, the author puts them

back into the cabinet and scribes the top and bottom locations with the layout knife.

After the mortises are cut, I screw the hinges to the stiles. I find a self-centering bit is a big help (see the bottom photo on the facing page). Some people like to start with just one screw per hinge leaf to check the fit. I prefer to start with at least two, because the door will sometimes pivot and rack on one screw. If the job feels like it's going well, I'll add all the screws.

Marking and cutting the case

I set the door back in the case, on top of the shims. Then I mark the top and bottom of each hinge on the inside corner edge of the case side with the layout knife, as shown in the top left photo above. Again, using a square and a knife, I scribe the lines into the

case as far as the hinge leaf needs to go for the door face to sit
flush with the front of the case (see the top center photo above). The marking gauge should still be set for the thickness of the hinge. I scribe that line into the front edge of the case, reset the

with the door, I stay in. away from the outside lines, chop feather cuts down to the line made by the marking gauge, and relieve

gauge to the width of the hinge leaf and scribe that line parallel to the front edge of the case. If the size of the cabinet will allow it, I place the case on its side on my workbench. That makes it easier to do the work that follows. With a dovetail saw, I make relief cuts in. inside the finished top and bottom scribed lines, as shown in the top right photo. I hold the saw on a slight diagonal to stop the cut at the back and bottom lines of the mortise. I define the back line of the mortise with some firm chisel strikes (see the photo at right). Just as I did
Score and clean out the mortises with a chisel Sharp tools

make this job quick and accurate.

the waste with the flat of the chisel. After that, I finish the mortise by chiseling out the small bits of waste left along the outside lines.
I place a few battens (the same thickness as the side of the case) on the workbench to support the door and fit the hinge leaves into the mortises. Just as I did with the doors, I bore holes with a centering bit, pilot bit and a bit for the screw shank. Keep in mind that you may need to use a shorter screw in the side of the case. I secure the doors in place. Then I put the case in an upright position so the doors can swing freely.
Final fittingThe last adjustment needs to be made at the joint

Hanging the doors

where the two doors meet (see the photos at left). The object is to remove the same amount of material from each door and to end up with a -in. gap in the middle. So with the doors closed and one overlapping the other, I mark and measure the overlap, divide that by two and add in. That tells me how much to remove from the first edge. Then I mark that dimension in pencil along the stile of the first door, move it to the vise and plane to that line. I secure the door in its place, close it in position, overlapping the other door, and mark a pencil line at the joint. I add another in. to that line, move the door to the vise and plane to the finished line. I like to put a slight bevel to this inside edge, removing a little more material from the back side, so that the doors clear one another more easily when they open and close. I hang the door and check that the spacing is consistent top to bottom, making any final adjustments before the final sanding and finishing stages. At this point, it doesn't hurt to take a moment to
step back and appreciate the result of your efforts.

Philip Lowe is a furnituremaker in Beverly, Mass., who gets the chance every once in a while to build something for himself.
Getting the center gap rightMark the overlap

that overlap (right). To end up with a -in. gap between the

of one door to the other (above). Get a precise measurement of

first door. Trim

amount from the the second door to fit.

add in. and remove that

two doors, divide the overlap distance by two,

A finished fitGaps around doors are almost perfectly consistent in this mahogany and Sitka spruce cabinet.

Combining machine and handwork makes a tightly coped joint where rail meets stile
by Joseph Beals

Making Full-Sized Doors

aking full-sized doors is a fine job for a small shop. The design for frame-and-panel doors offers an opportunity to draw from a broad spectrum of traditional styles. One of the most important design questions concerns something you can't even see when the door is finishedthe joinery that holds it together. To hold up over time, the frame must be joined with full mortise-and-tenon joinery or with dowels. I've made more than two dozen doors for local contractors using dowels, and I have decided that it's a demanding, tedious and unforgiving method. When I found time to build several doors for my own house, I devised a method that combines simple machine work and traditional mortise-and-tenon construction. The joints are strong, and they can be fitted and tuned before final assembly, a convenience that doweling does not offer. You can cut the joints in a number of ways that don't require expensive tools or machinery. I use a shaper to cut the pattern molding on the inside edges of the rails and stiles, but you could also cut it with a router, tablesaw molding head or even by hand with a molding plane.

piece at a time, making a separate pass for each side. If the pattern looks good, I plow the panel groove with my shaper. You could also cut the groove with a dado blade on the tablesaw. The first pass removes the bulk of the waste; a second pass made with the stock turned over will ensure a perfectly centered groove. The depth of the panel groove must match the depth of the pattern molding (see the top drawing on p. 60). The width of the panel groove will define the thickness of the tenons, about in. for a -in.-thick exterior door and in. for a -in.-thick interior door. The exact width can be finetuned to work with the pattern molding and can be adjusted as needed. Lay out the mortises with a pencil Use the first test piece, with the patternand-groove cut, as a guide for marking the stiles. Clamp the two stiles together, face to face (see the bottom drawing on p. 60), and define the two up edges as the inside edges. Mark the top and bottom of the door, leaving an equal amount of excess length at each end. Mark where each of the three rails intersects the stiles. Within these three pairs of marks, lay out the bottom of the panel grooves, as measured off the test piece. That mark will show you where to cut the mortises. Finally, mark 1 in. inward from the top and bottom of the door to define where top and bottom rail mortises will end. Cut the mortises before shaping the frame piecesCut all the mortises with a drill press and hand chisels before doing

A passage door built to lastThe author always dry-fits a door before final assembly (facing page) and fine-tunes the joints as required. The finished door (above) is well-suited for the site, a 150-year-old house in New England,
the pieces should be at least a foot long for convenience and safety. With the first test piece, set up the pattern molding and panel groove. Install a single standard pattern cutter on the shaper to make the molding. I use a single cutter as a simple profiling tool, so it's not restricted to a particular door thickness. And I mill the pattern molding on one edge of the test

Lay out the joints with scraps

Rip and joint all the frame stock to the finished width. Leave all the pieces several inches long for the initial pattern shaping to allow for snipe and to dress off any bad ends. At the same time, mill several test pieces for laying out the molding, the panel groove and the joints. These test pieces can be the same width as the stiles, and

Hybrid door joinery

By combining

the author makes durable doors without using expensive machinery

machine and hand techniques,

and tooling.

Section through at A

Marking the mortises

Stiles, ripped and jointed to width, are left long and trimmed after the door has been assembled. Pencil marks provide easy guidelines to follow in cutting the joinery.
and they define the top and

Outside lines indicate the location of all three rails,

bottom of the finished door.

An offset of 1 in. at

the top and bottom of the door leaves

trimming later.

enough stock for

Inside lines indicate where the mortises will be cut. These marks also define where to cut back the pattern molding.

any more work on the stiles. Using the test piece as a guide, set up the drill press by centering a regular twist bit in the panel groove. It's important to use a fence or a clamp, like the one shown in the photo at right, to register the stiles so that the bit cuts consistently at the center of the mortise. Set the depth in. or so short of the outside edge of the stile to leave enough material to trim the door to width. A twist bit equal in diameter to the width of the panel groove is ideal for drilling out the mortises. A smaller bit will serve the purpose, but you will have more handwork when cleaning out the mortises. Avoid using spade augers: They can wander and produce an oversized or eccentric hole. Drill all the holes for the mortises, but wait until after you have cut the panel grooves to clean them up with chisels.

Muntins can be fit to the frame one of

grooves and pattern molding, you'll need to choose the style of joint between the two muntins at the center of the door and the rails. I use my door-making cope-and-pattern cutter set. This joint is not structural, and the stub tenon that fits into the panel groove in the rails is quite adequate. If you don't have a cutter set or if you would prefer to make full mortise-and-tenon joints, you can cut mortises in the rails just as you did in the stiles. The mortises can be shallower1 in. or so would be plenty deep. If you machine-cope the muntins, determine their length by measuring from panel groove to panel groove between the rails. You can take their length right off the marked stiles. Set up the coping cutter by using the test piece as a reference, and cope one end of another test piece to check the fit. When all is well, cope the muntin ends. Some splintering is normal on the exit side of the cut, but it will disappear when you shape the pattern molding.

two waysBefore machining the panel

Mortising the stilesThe author uses his drill press with a twist bit to remove most of the stock. You could also use a router, a mortiser or chop out the waste by hand.
Sharp chisels make a differenceLay

At this point, you can machine the pattern moldings and the panel grooves on the inside edges of the stiles, the top and bottom rails, both edges of the muntins and the lock rail. It makes no difference which shape you cut first, unless you are concerned about protecting the pattern molding when you clean out the mortises in the stiles. If so, cut the panel groove first, clean out the mortises as described below and machine the pattern molding afterward.

Clean out the mortises, and shape the moldings

the stiles on a flat surface, such as a good bench or a machine table, and clean the mortises with a wide chisel honed to a very keen edge. Pare the mortise sides dead flush with the sides of the panel groove (see the photo at right). I use a mortising chisel to clean out the bottom of the mortises and to square the ends. You could leave the ends round from the drill bit, and round over the tenons to fit.

Remove the pattern molding from the

stileThe tenon shoulders of the rails seat on the common bottom of the pattern molding and panel groove on the stiles. To make the seat, you need to remove the pattern molding on the stiles between the ends of the mortises for all three rails. You can cut the pattern molding down with a back-

panel grooves on his shaper. The grooves provide a good reference for paring the mortises with a chisel.

Cleaning out the mortiseAfter drilling mortises, the author cuts the

facing page show, it's rather simple, and it

gives a very satisfying result. Pattern moldings on both rail and stile could also be

mitered, but that is not a good option. A mitered joint between the pieces of a door frame is difficult to fit precisely, and any
movement of the rails will spoil it.

A dado blade on a radial-arm saw

To cope the pattern molding, first cut a miter on the ends of the rails (and the muntins, if applicable) with a tablesaw. The end of the pattern molding is the exact end of the miter. I use a block against the tablesaw fence as a convenient stop. If the muntin ends are to be mitered for a handcoped joint, you will have to reset the fence for the shorter tenons. As the photos on the facing page show, start coping the joint by darkening the miter profile with a pencil to show the line clearly. A chisel and an in-cannel gouge complete the job (undercutting the cope slightly ensures a tight joint).

tenons on the ends of the rails. The author cuts to precisely marked lines and uses stop blocks for repetitive tasks.

molding on the stiles and for making the

works well for cutting back the pattern

saw and pare off the waste with a chisel, or you can use a dado blade on a tablesaw or radial-arm saw, I prefer the radial-arm saw for this task because it's quick and accurate, once you've spent the time setting up the cut with scraps.

After all the stiles have been mortised and the pattern molding cut back to receive the rails, mark the rails for length, and cut the tenons. Lay the stiles on a table or a set of sawhorses, spaced apart the exact width of the finished door. Lay the rails across the stiles. If the rails have been mortised to receive hand-coped muntins, make sure these mortises are dead center between the stiles. Mark the location of all tenon shoulders directly off the joint seats, as described previously. At the same time, mark the ends of the rails for tenon length in. or so short of the bottom of the mortise.

Mark the rail tenons directly from the mortises

That clearance provides space for excess glue and debris and ensures that the joint will draw up tightly. For uniform accuracy when cutting the tenons, I use the radial-arm saw with a stop block against the fence (see the bottom photo). Always check the setup with a test piece. The tenon, as it comes from the saw,
should fit the mortise snugly. If it slides home easily, it's too loose. Because the top and bottom rail mortises stop 1 in. from the actual top and bottom of the door, you must remove this excess from the tenons. Cut down the shoulder with a backsaw, and saw off the waste or split it off with a chisel. Dress the tenons with a rabbet plane, and chamfer the ends to ease the tenon's entry into the mortise.

With this type of construction, you can test the door frame before assembly. I fit all the joints individually, and mark all the pieces, shaving the tenons, mortises or both for a smooth fit with just a little resistance. Then I dry-assemble the frame. Because the muntins are trapped between the rails, all three of which are fit into their own mortises in the stiles, any discrepancy in muntin length will be instantly apparent. Muntins that are too long will prevent the frame from coming together. The obvious cure is to shorten them as necessary. If muntins are too short, the
problem can be corrected by shifting the

Dry-fit the door frame before assembly

top or bottom rail toward the lock rail. You can do this by removing stock from the tenons at the inside edge of the rails and trimming the pattern molding on the stile by the same amount. This will allow the rail to slide toward the lock rail, tightening the
loose muntin. If shifting the top or bottom

rail locations makes the door too small for the opening, you'll just have to bite the bullet and make new muntins.
frame is fully assembled and all the joints are tight, clamp lightly across the rails to simulate the pressure applied when the final assembly takes place. The large shoulders on the rails will square up the frame, but they are not proof against twisting. You can correct twist by shaving the tenons or paring the insides of mortises on diagonal-

Check that the frame is flatWhen the

Cope the pattern molding on the

railsThis final step in making the joints coping the railslooks like a difficult, exacting job. But as the four photos on the

Coping the pattern molding

ly opposite joints until the clamped frame lies dead fiat. Such a small amount of stock is removed that fit isn't compromised. Take panel dimensions off the assembled door frame, with appropriate allowances for panel movement. There are several ways to make panels (FWW #94, p. 65). One design option I like is to make panels that are raised on both sides. They can be solid or made from a pair of panels placed back to back, which is especially useful for exterior doors. Panels can be machined to fit the groove snugly, inhibiting water entry, and the inside and outside surfaces can move independently.

Mortise-and-tenon door joints are traditionally fastened by pins or wedges, but for exterior doors, epoxy is a superior alternative. I use West System epoxy together with a thickening additive (available from Gougeon Brothers, Inc., 706 Martin St., Bay

Use epoxy for the final assembly

City, MI 48706; 517-684-7286). Epoxy is strong, waterproof, gap-filling and creeps only slightly under load. West System epoxy has a very long shelf life and mixes easily using metered dispensing pumps. Unlike aliphatic resin glues, epoxy has no initial grab. In fact, its lubricity is a great convenience when drawing together the large multiple joints in a full-sized door. Since I started using epoxy, I dumped my plastic resin and resorcinol glues in the bin. Assemble the door by making a tree of the rails and muntins, slip the panels in place, apply glue to the mortises and tenons, and draw both stiles home simultaneously. Clamp lightly, check for twist and make any corrections by fine-tuning opposing pressure on the clamps. Check the pattern molding at the coped joints, and remove glue squeeze-out.

Joseph Beals is a custom woodworker in

Marshfield, Mass.

the rail of the pattern molding on the tablesaw. He uses a stop block off the fence as an index. The pencil mark along the edge helps to highlight where the cope will be cut. The curved part of the cope is cut with and in-cannel gouge. All flat surfaces are cut with a paring chisel.

Coping the railsTo define the shape of the cope, the author starts by mitering

Accurately beveled staves produce a graceful curve

by Garrett Hack

Coopering a Door

efore I went to woodworking school, all of my work tended to be flat, straight and square. It wasn't intentional. Rectilinear work was all I had ever seen. When I arrived at school, everyone was designing and building curved forms, making tapered laminationsdoing all kinds of curved work. It was a liberating experience to see beyond flat and square. My first project with curves was a toolbox with a pair of coopered doors. I chose to cooper the doorsthat is, to create the curves from a number of relatively narrow, bevel-edged pieces called stavesbecause I wanted the doors to be solid, not veneered. Coopering seemed like the simplest and best technique. Coopering has been around since biblical days and has been most commonly used for making barrels and buckets. It appeals to me because it yields predictable results with a minimum of effort, and few tools or special fixtures are required. With careful layout and accurately cut bevels, I can make curved doors (or other furniture elements) of nearly any radius. The only real alternative to coopering for making curved doors is laminating, either of solid layers or of veneer over plywood. Although laminating is somewhat stronger than coopering, it requires either carefully matched forms or a vacuum press, and results are less predictable. Laminated curves always have some degree of springback, and it's impossible to know just how much before they come out of the press. If you're willing to make a trial lamination or two to check springback and fine-tune the form, laminating will give you a very strong curved door. I've found, however, that it's not worth the effort for just a door or two. Coopering is not without its disadvantages, but they're minor. If you want a smooth curve, rather than a faceted one, the whole door must be planed and scraped after assembly because the curve is fashioned from a number of flat pieces. The convex outer face is fairly easy to smooth. And I generally leave the inside faceted, intentionally revealing the method of construction. As for strength, as long as the glue joints are sound, a coopered door should last as long as any flat-panel construction. Also, a coopered door will shrink and swell as any solid timber will, but because of the angles at the joints, it can subtly change shape as it changes dimension. If you're concerned that a single wide door might move too much (its movement will be equal to a board as wide as the length of the curve), make two narrower doors instead.

The key to building any coopered door is an accurate pattern. It's on the pattern that I figure the number of staves, their width, thickness and the bevel angle at each joint. Just before assembling the case, I draw a curved pattern from the case top, bottom or even a shelf. Then I build the door to match this curve. I include the case stiles (where the door hinges and latches) on the pattern to make fitting the finished door easier. When making the coopered door for the cabinet shown in the photo at left, I started with the curved,

Curve layout takes place on a pattern

Laying out and beveling the staves

The bevel angles for the joints between staves are easily determined with a drafting protractor

Determining bevel angle

and a straightedge. The layout is done on a full-scale drawing of the door opening.
Step 3

the curve to get the bevel angle. Angles

Connect this mark with the joint mark on

can now be measured with a bevel gauge. Step 2 Without moving the protractor, make a mark at the 90 division.

Step 1 After marking off stave locations with dividers,

position the protractor so the center of its bottom leg is on a joint. Pivot until bottom,

leg is tangential to the curve at the joint.

Record each angle. Use a bevel gauge to measure the angles on the drawing. Then record them on scrap.

blade at the correct angle.

Transfer angles to the saw. The author uses the bevel gauge to set the tablesaw

changing the blade angle.

With the angle set, make the cut. Cut all the bevels of the same angle before

laminated drawer fronts. I used the shape of the drawers to determine the curve of the case and the pattern for the door. To establish the number and width of each stave, I used a trial block cut to what I guessed the thickness and width of the completed staves would be. By laying this out around the curve on the pattern and tracing around the block each time, I got a good idea of what the profile of the finished door would look like. This approach allows me to change a trial layout by simply trying a different-sized block. The more staves you use, the smoother the curve, but for every stave you add, there's another joint to fit and glue. For doors with a nearly consistent curve such as this one (it's a section of an

er they need to be because more material will have to be removed

to create a smooth curve. Superimposing the trial block on the

ellipse), I use staves that are all the same width. For asymmetrical curves, increasing the stave width where the curve is flatter simplifies construction. For a tighter curve, narrower staves work better. If I am going to fair the curves (either just the outside face or both inside and outside), I allow extra thickness for each stave because some material will be planed away. The fewer the staves, the thick-

curve of the door drawn on the pattern gives me a good idea of how thick to make my staves. I rough cut the staves about in. wider than their final dimension and at least an inch longer. I start out with this much extra because after the bevels have been ripped, I still want to have roughly in. per joint to allow for the fitting between each pair of staves and for the final fitting of the door in the case. Any extra material can be trimmed equally from the two outside staves when fitting the door. Once the staves have been milled, I lay them out to get the best color and grain match. I mark each joint so I know which side is the face and which end is up. Although the trial block tells me how many staves I need, I still have to mark off the exact location of each joint on the drawing. I do this by walking a set of dividers around the curve, marking off equal segments (for a symmetrical curve) from one end of the curve to the other. As the drawing above shows, a pair of staves

Keep checking the door against the drawing. To avoid having to remove a large amount of material after the door has been glued up, be sure the bevel angle between staves conforms exactly to the full-scale drawing.

will meet at each of the marks on the curve. It's not absolutely essential that each pair of staves meet at the same bevel angle, but their surfaces will be flush inside and out if they do. This makes clamping and fairing the curves a bit easier.
For a curve that is an arc of a circle, each bevel angle is the same. For any other curve, I determine the bevel angle at each joint by

fence (see the photo at right on the facing page). In general, if

there are any other bevels that need to be sawn at the same angle,

bisecting the angle formed by the two staves. The easiest way to do this is to draw a line perpendicular to the tangent of the curve at each joint (see the drawing). Then I take a bevel gauge and transfer the angle from the drawing to a piece of scrap I call a bevel board (see the photo at left on the facing page). All the angles are now safely recorded.

I set the blade angle on the tablesaw by referring to my bevel board (see the center photo on the facing page). To bevel the first edge, I set the fence in. or so wider than the stave's final width and passed the stave over the saw with a jointed edge against the

Rip bevels on the tablesaw; joint with a handplane

I'll rip them all before changing the blade angle. It's easy to get a stave oriented incorrectly, so I double-check every setup. For the second edge on a stave, I set the fence so the stave was about in. over its final width. Repeatedly resetting the tablesaw blade angle and fence for all the bevels results in slight differences in stave width, but it doesn't affect the result. To get good glue joints, I jointed the tablesawn bevels with a No. 5 jack plane. (For a taller door, I would use a longer plane.) This also let me fine-tune the bevels. I started with the first stave in the curve and clamped it in a shoulder vise at a comfortable height. I took a very light cut, just enough to get a straight, polished edge. Then I did the same to the matching joint in the next stave. After shooting both bevels, I held the staves together on the pattern and checked for fit. (If need be, I can reshoot one of the bevels, taking a slightly heavier shaving toward one side of the edge or the other until the stave angles match the pattern exactly.) Before gluing

Gluing the door

pressure helps close the joint on its outside face. Cauls that match the faceted inside curve of the door can make clamping the joints much easier as staves are added (2). On this door, the author .
glued up two halves separately; then he joined the

stave at a time as the glue cures. When clamping the first pair (1), downward

starts with a pair of staves and then adds one

Gluing up an entire door at once would be nearly impossible, so the author

them, I jointed the second bevel on the second stave. I wanted the back of this door faceted, so I also finish-planed the inside surfaces of both staves. If I had wanted the inside surface to be a smooth curve like the outside, I'd have skipped this step. Gluing the staves together is, without a doubt, the trickiest part of coopering, often demanding some creativity. The trick is to exert pressure evenly across the joint so that it doesn't open up either on the inside or outside. Many strategies will work: using shaped cauls, driving pinch dogs in the ends of the staves, gluing pine blocks to the faces of the staves temporarily to get a good clamping angle (with a sheet of paper in the joint so they can be broken off cleanly afterward), or just rubbing a joint together and holding it for a few minutes until the glue grabs. I always try to use the simplest clamping method that suits the scale and curvature of the door. You can use a spline, a few biscuits or even brads (with their heads cut off) to help maintain alignment when gluing staves together. For a door this small, alignment was not very difficult. I just took the time to get it right when clamping each joint. The bevel angles for this door were close enough to 90 that I was able to clamp them almost as I would two square-edged boards. You may find it helpful, as I did, to exert pressure both across and down onto the joint to close it up on the outside face. I used three clamps across the top side of the staves and then clamped right into the joint (using cauls to prevent marring) against the top of my bench (see the top photo at left). For this door, I glued up two halves, one stave at a time, and then joined these two assemblies together. Because there were an odd number of staves, one-half had four staves, and one-half had only three. I glued up the first pair of staves for each half and let the glue cure before adding the next pieces. Building the doors a piece at a time makes the glue-up slower but much more manageable. Cauls can help. To glue the third stave to the first pair, I shaped two cauls with a bandsaw and block plane. I clamped the staves to these cauls and clamped across the joint with light bar clamps. Because the angle between staves can change as you work your way around the curve, the cauls may have to be reshaped (see the center photo). When I spread glue on a joint, I kept it very thin toward the inside surface so that there would be little or no squeeze-out to clean up afterward. Nevertheless, I still used a rabbet plane and a small scraper that I ground to the angle between staves to get the inside joints sharp and distinct. I reshaped the scraper with a fine file to fit each successive joint. Before gluing on each successive stave, I checked the joint against the pattern by holding the stave tight to the ones already glued together. I fine-tuned when necessary and finish-planed the inside surface. The final glue-upconnecting the two assemblies, one with the first four staves and the other with the last three staveswas the most complicated. It required another pair of shaped cauls and battens (see the photo at left). Even so, it wasn't that unwieldy because there was only one joint to worry about.

Glue and clamp just one joint at a time

two in a final glue-up (3).

Fit the door to its opening

After the door was assembled, it was about an inch taller and just slightly wider than its opening. I crosscut the door on the tablesaw, leaving it slightly long to allow for a precise fitting after I'd cut it to

width (see the top left photo on the facing page). To fit to width, the hinging and closing edges need to be beveled

to match their respective stiles. I could have cut these edges when I was beveling the staves initially, but I decided to keep them wide so no harm would be done by the inevitable clamping dings. Because I was very close to the width of the opening, I just took the bevel angles off the pattern and planed them by hand, checking as I went with a bevel gauge. Once I had the door cut very nearly to width (the final fitting took place after it was hung), I planed its ends to length so that it would fit snugly, but all the way into its opening. Then, with the door in its opening, I traced a light pencil line of the curve around the top and bottom edges (see the bottom left photo). This gave me reference lines to plane to when fairing the outside to a smooth curve. For designs where the door's final shape can't be traced so easily, another possibility is to cut out the paper pattern and transfer it to the ends of the door. I shaped the outside with a block plane, working initially across the grain and at a diagonal, paying attention to the reference lines on the top and bottom edges (see the photo below right). Most of

the wood to be removed is at the joints. This is also when I finetune the shape of the door by checking it in its opening often. Planing the door to match the case opening precisely may leave

the door slightly thinner in places, but it's hardly ever noticeable. For the final smoothing, I use a scraper and fine sandpaper. The inside is harder to plane to a smooth shape. Coopers use a stoup plane with a doubly compassed sole. When I want a smooth inside face, I use spokeshaves and shaped scrapers. Once you understand the basic technique, it's not that great a leap to make a tapered door with tapered staves or even one curved in three dimensions. By tapering the staves, steam-bending them to shape and then shooting the joints between them, you can
cooper some dramatic curves. But you don't need to go this far to add a pair of elegant doors to your next project.

Garrett Hack is a farmer, writer and furnituremaker in Thetford

by The Taunton Press.

Center, Vt. His book, The Handplane Book was recently published

Fitting the door

(2) are reference marks that guide the final shaping of the door front (3). When the door has been planed and scraped to the lines, it will be flush with the rest of the case.

With the glue fully cured, the door can be cut to the right height on a tablesaw (1). The author strives for a snug fit. Pencil lines drawn on the top and bottom edges of the door

Build a Bookcase with Doors

Structure and details make the difference in this Shaker-style case

by Christian Becksvoort

he essence of good design is a piece of furniture that seems right just the way it is. There should be nothing to add and nothing to take away to improve it. That's what I aimed for with this cherry bookcase. It was to be Shaker inspired, quiet and unpretentious, but not boring. The bookcase needed to fit beneath a window sill, so it is relatively small, about 24 in. wide and 40 in. high. Its appearance and size are not overpowering, sp I relied on careful workmanship and just a few details to carry the design. Each of these construction detailsa dovetailed molding at the top of the case, a mitered base

and a strip of wood whose end grain doesn't show just above the doorsrequired a fair amount of extra work. The details don't jump out at you, but together they give the bookcase an appeal that it wouldn't otherwise have.

The basic structure of this bookcase is quite simple: Two sides dovetailed to the top and three shelves connected to the sides with sliding dovetails. A frame-and-panel back is set into a rabbet at the case's back. To begin, I milled, crosscut and ripped to width

Dovetails hold the case together

Three tips for smoother dovetailing

Keep the case square. A piece of scrap cut to the interior dimension of the bookcase and placed at its base keeps the

parallel and ensures that the top will clamp up square to

the sides.

sides of the bookcase

are glued just at the ends. By leaving the joint dry until it's within 2 in. or 3 in. of home, the author prevents the dovetails from binding. The mechanical connection is plenty strong even without glue in the middle.
Picture-frame clamp keeps top and side at 90 for layout.

Sliding dovetails

the top and two sides from a single wide cherry board. I cut the
rabbet for the back panel in the rear inside edge of each piece, and then I laid out and cut the dovetailed slots in the top. Because

when 3 in. of shelf was still exposed. At this point, I applied glue to
the dovetails at the top and to the slots underneath and tapped the shelf home, stopping when it was flush with the back rabbet and

the top overhangs the sides by

in. at the front of the case, the

with the front (see the bottom right photo). I clamped the case from
side to side, both front and back.

half-slot there is set back in. from the edge. To lay out the pins on the top of the sides, I used a picture-frame clamp, which holds the top and a side at precisely 90 to each other (see the photo at
left above). Then I cut and chopped the pins. I cut the foot profiles in the sides on the bandsaw, then laid out

I built the frame-and-panel back about in. wider and longer than its opening. To fit it to the case, I started by running the top
edge over the jointer, fitting one side and then, carefully, the other. I was careful to take even amounts off both sides. With help from

and routed the dovetailed slots for the three fixed shelves using a
shop-built fixture to guide the router (described in FWW #119, p. 74). Before gluing the top and sides together, I sanded the insides. To be sure the top and sides glued up square, I placed a

a little block plane, the back eased in nicely.

After sanding the back, I held it in place, marked the location of the shelves on the back of the frame and glued the back into its rabbet. After the glue had dried, I drilled holes for 6d finishing nails at

spacer stick between the two front feet when gluing and clamping
the three pieces together (see the top right photo). Routing the sliding dovetails on the ends of the shelves was next. After planing the shelves to thickness, then ripping and crosscutting them, I used the offcuts to set the fence on my router table,
Once I had a perfect fit, I routed the dovetails on both ends of all

the marks I had made, one at the center of each shelf and one near
each end. I countersunk these nails about in. deep and plugged

the holes with whittled down cherry pegs. Then I sanded the back

and softened all the edges with a worn piece of 220-grit paper.
There's only about 1 in. of case side extending below the bottom
shelf and only the first and last 3 in. of the shelf is glued. So I glued

three shelves and sanded them. One at a time, I slid each shelf into its slot from the front, stopping

and screwed two small blocks on the underside of the bottom

shelf, one at the center of each end. I sanded the bottom edges of

the sides and back, as well as the angled sides of the feet. A belt sander quickly removed the rough spots, and a little hand-sanding

cutting a strip

in. sq. and 28 in. long from heartwood scrap left

over from the sides. I set the blade at 45 and ripped just shy of
4 in. into this strip on the tablesaw, keeping the kerf on the waste

eliminated the scratches.

Miters solve two aesthetic problems

side of the diagonal center and carefully backing out the strip from
the blade. I crosscut the strip at 24 in. and set that piece aside for a

I planned to hang the double doors so they went all the way to
the outside edges of the case rather than inside the case. This would leave the doors standing in. off the front of the bookcase

unless I added two horizontal strips of wood across the case front

to even things out. One strip would go just above the doors and one just below. But I didn't want end grain showing on the sides

moment. Then I cut two -in.-long pieces from the ripped triangular section. T mitered one end of the 24-in.-long piece at 45, held it in place on the case, then marked and mitered the other end. I glued one of the little -in.-long blocks at each end of the 24-in.long piece, using masking tape as a clamp.

After the glue had dried, I carefully jointed the strip at the ends
and ripped it to in. wide by in. deep. I glued the piece to the

of the case at the ends of the top strip, and I wasn't sure how to integrate the bottom strip into the foot assembly without it looking awkward. As it turned out, the solutions to both these design
problems involved miters. For the top strip, I decided to miter both ends and glue on little blocks oriented in the same direction as the case sides. Because the strip was glued to the overhang of the top as well as to the edge of

top of the case, under the overhang. As a result, all you can see
from the front or sides is face grain.

The foot assemblytwo feet and a horizontal bar connecting

themis made using asymmetrical miters (see the drawing and

photos below). I started with a single piece

ping the long piece to

in. thick, 2 in. wide

and 34 in. long. Then I cut a 5-in.-long piece off each end. After rip-

the case sides, the end grain glue-up wasn't a problem. I started by

in. wide, I laid out the miters, as shown

A quick miter for stock of different widths

1. Lay out the miter. Holding the horizontal bar on the foot piece, the author marks the face of the
of the horizontal bar.

foot and the bottom edge

2. Connect the dots. Straight lines between these marks and the corner of each piece establish the miters.
3. Cut to the line. The author uses a bandsaw to cut each miter, then trues them up on a disc sander. A handsaw and plane would work just as well.

4. Attach the base assembly to the case by gluing it to the case sides and the bottom half of the bottom shelf. The top half of the

and acts as a doorstop.

bottom shelf is exposed

Frame joinery that you don't have to measure

The offset tenon shoulders on the rails make these door-frame joints

joints that fit perfectly is to use the first shoulder as a reference when laying out the second, as shown below.
Rabbet and mortise the stile first. Start

look more difficult than they really are. The only real trick to getting

in photos 1 and 2 on p. 83. I cut the miters close to the line on the bandsaw (see photo 3 on p. 83) and sanded right up to the line on a disc sander. To give this joint some strength (it's just end grain meeting end

grain), I used a

-in.-thick spline that stops short of the top of the

joint, so it's hidden from view (see the drawing of the mitered

by cutting rabbets in rails and stiles and routing or chopping out mortises in stiles.
Cutting the

base assembly on p. 81). When I glued up the assembly, I used a bar clamp to pull the joint in from end to end and two hand screws to exert pressure top to bottom. Once the glue had dried,
I ran the whole assembly along the rip fence, crosscutting the legs

offset tenon
Cut outside

to

in. Then I cut the foot angles and trimmed the protruding

1. First shoulder.

splines on the bandsaw. I sanded the underside of the horizontal

bar and the foot angles next and glued the assembly onto the case (see photo 4 on p. 83).

shoulder of tenon. Determine depth length is equal to the depth of the mortise plus the rabbet.
by the rabbet;

To make the feet a little beefier, I installed glue blocks on their inside corners where the sides meet the front and the back. I took a
piece about -in.-sq. and 10 in. long and ripped it diagonally on

the bandsaw, using a V-block as a cradle. Then I held a piece in each corner, marked and cut it to its actual length and planed the bandsawn face smooth. I glued one into each corner, using a spring clamp for pressure.

measure. Rest the shoulder of

the rail on the

2. Scribe, don't

deep, -in.-dia. hole in the center of the bottom of each foot with
a Forstner bit. I drilled a -in.-dia. pilot hole in the center of each of those holes, then nailed in nylon furniture glides. Only about

After beltsanding the feet flush on the bottom, I drilled a

-in-

inside edge of the stile, then mark the location of the second shoulder.

in. protrudes, so they are not visible unless you happen to be I followed up with 0000 steel wool and eased any sharp edges.
lying on the floor. After using a block plane to chamfer the feet lightly all the way around, I sanded the whole case to 320-grit. Then

3. Cut second

The two door frames for this bookcase are joined with mortiseand-tenon joints and are rabbeted in the back to accept glass. I used quartersawn stock for the frames, both to minimize wood

Door-frame joinery looks trickybut isn't

shoulder. The inside shoulder

of the tenon is

shorter to compensate in the stile.

movement and for appearance. After choosing the frame pieces

and cutting them to length, I rabbeted them, making two cuts on the tablesaw. I saved the waste strips from the rabbeting operation for use as glass retaining bars. I laid out and bored the mortises in

for the rabbet

the four stiles next.

The rail tenons are a bit complex conceptually because they have offset shoulders, but the work is actually quite simple. The drawings at left explain the process. I cut the tenons on the tablesaw, setting the fence for the shoulder distance and using the miter gauge to keep the cut straight. Then I eliminated the waste up to the cheek by running the rails back and forth over the blade beginning at its leading edge, taking off just a little with each pass
over the blade. As the drawing at left shows, the trick to getting the

4. Size the tenon. The tenon

should be slightly

smaller than the mortise.

shoulders to line up perfectly is to mark the second shoulder while

using the first as a depth stop. After all the tenons were cut, I rounded over their edges with a
knife. Once they all fit, I glued and clamped the frames together, checking to be sure they were square. When the glue had dried, I
tenon. Use a
5. Round the

pinned the joints all the way through with as I had the case.

-in.-dia.,

-in.-long

sections of cherry dowel. I used only one pin per joint because the

them to fit the

ease the tenon corners and to get rounded mortise.

knife or a chisel to

tenons are quite small. Then I sanded and steel-wooled the doors
Fitting the doors was straightforward, I placed the case on its back on sawhorses and aligned the first door flush with the out-

side edge. I marked and jointed the top square, then the bottom,

and repeated the process for the other door. I always try to get a

My 10 trick for

hanging doors

Hinge location is marked on the edge of the case sides. Pinching a dimeabout

in. thickbetween the top of the stile and the case gives the author the reveal he wants at the top of the door. Waste is removed with a laminate trimmer; then the joint is cleaned up with a paring chisel.

reveal of

in. or less at the top and about

in. at the bottom.

drilled for the knobs, which I'd already turned. To install the
knobs, I dabbed a little glue in their mortises and used a hand

Doors droop over time; they never creep up. Finally, I planed the

inside edges of the two doors to get a side to side, should be less than
I hinged the doors with

-in. reveal between them.

Because I used quartersawn stock, total movement for both doors,

in.
-in. broad brass hinges from

Whitechapel Ltd. (P.O. Box 136, Wilson, WY 83014; 800-468-5534).

I laid out the hinges in the doors first, scribing around the hinges

with a knife. I routed out most of the waste for the door-hinge
mortises using a laminate trimmer, and

then I cleaned up the corners and edges

with a wide chisel. I installed the hinges

screw to exert pressure on the knob until it was fully seated. I drilled holes in the upper shelf for round magnetic catches and recessed the strikes into the backs of the door stiles. I applied a thumbnail molding on the front and sides of the bookcase. It is attached to dovetailed keys on the sides (see the photo below), so the molding wouldn't prevent the sides from moving (see FWW #122, pp. 52-55 for a more complete description of this process). Once the molding was finished, I sanded the back of the

molding flush and sanded the entire top

through 320-grit, finishing with 0000

in the doors, waxing the screws to ease their entry. To lay out the positions of the hinge mortises on the edges of the case sides, I laid the doors on the case, one at a time.

steel wool.
After three coats of Tried and True varnish oil, steel-wooled between coats, the doors were ready for glass. I removed the doors and cut the retainer strips to length, leaving their ends square. Then

I made sure the outside edge was flush

while I pinched a dime between the top

rail and the top of the case (see the photo

at left above). I made a knife mark on

I predrilled and nailed them in place

over the glass with -in.-long brass escutcheon pins. After the doors had been rehung, I added leather buttons to the door stops, top and bottom, to deaden the thunk as the doors are shut.

both sides of each hinge, then removed

the doors.

To lay out the perimeter of these hinge mortises, I laid a door upside down on a

sawhorse, right next to the case, and held

a hinge in place between the knife marks I'd just made. The barrel of the hinge acted as a depth stop, allowing me to mark out the perimeter of the mortise. Before attaching the doors to the case, I

Molding is attached to case with dovetail keys. This prevents the case from cracking by letting the side expand and contract.

Christian Becksvoort is a professional furnituremaker in New Gloucester, Maine, and is a contributing editor to

Fine Woodworking. He is writing a book

on Shaker furniture.

PERSONALIZE YOUR HOUSE

Build a Houseful of Doors

without coming unhinged
B Y J O H N L I V E L Y ven before we moved into a Tudor cottage from the 1920s, I knew the doors had to go. Their faceted glass knobs, single flat panels and the dozen coats of gloppy paint definitely did not go with the house. And the doors were ugly to boot. Soon after we moved in, I was sitting at the drafting table when despair settled in. Building one or two doors was no big deal, but making 16 doors was going to be a prison term of doing the same toilsome tasks over and over. It was a sad Saturday morning when I told my wife I was going down to the buildingsupply store to check out the doors. It was even sadder still, when all I found were a lot of raised-panel doors in the Colonial style, a smaller selection of Mediterranean style and hundreds of hollow-core doors whose most exciting feature was a seamless skin of rotary-cut veneer. By noon, I was back at the drawing board designing much simpler doors with biscuit joints instead of mortise and tenon. My plan was to figure out a strategy that would allow me to make and hang a single door in a weekend or two. I also wanted to come up with a method of building a door to fit exactly into an existing opening, thus avoiding the tedious

and messy task of lugging all my tools out of the basement and into the living space of the house.

Simple elements, major effect

For the sake of straightforward construction, I had to keep the number of elements in each door to a bare minimumfour frame members and one panel. To add interest to the design of the frames, I decided to run stopped chamfers on their inside edges. And on one door, I cut a double-

my house. But by fiddling with the details, you can adapt this basic approach to design doors that will work with your house. A doors vertical frame members (stiles) ought to be at least 41 2 in. wide, but I prefer them a little wider. The typical back set for a knob location is either 23 8 in. or 23 4 in., which means to keep knobs centered, stiles should be either 43 4 in. or 51 2 in. Also, after boring two big holes in your latch stile, theres not a lot of beef left if youre using narrow stock.

M Y S T R AT E G Y WA S T O M A K E A N D H A N G A D O O R I N A W E E K E N D A N D T O AV O I D T H E T E D I O U S TA S K O F L U G G I N G ALL MY TOOLS OUT OF THE BASEMENT INTO THE LIVING S PAC E O F T H E H O U S E .

sprung Gothic arch into the top rail and carved a dogwood blossom. V-grooved 1x4s seemed the right remedy for making such large panels something more than unrelieved expanses of planed wood. After making the first couple of doors, I was surprised at the visual impact these simple details made. The doors I made harmonize (to my eye anyway) with the Arts-and-Crafts style of Traditionally, a doors horizontal frame members (rails) are of unequal widths, the bottom rail being considerably wider than the top one. This arrangement offers a maximum amount of wood to be involved in the usual mortise-and-tenon joinery. But with biscuit joinery and modern glues, you can size the rails to your liking. Because youre gluing long grain to cross grain, a 51 2-in. rail will provide good strength withPhotos: Boyd Hagen

70

FINE WOODWORKING

RAIL
Stiles and rails made of 8/4 stock planed to fit existing jamb Panel pinned at center of top and bottom rail.

out enough cross-grain movement to break the joint loose. I get plenty of strength using double rows of biscuits in all four joints.

STILE

Precise dimensioning is key to speed

The greatest aid to speed and efficiency is accuracy in milling. If your stock is milled up square and true, the rest of the work will go smoothly and quickly. But if you mess up on the first part, well, youll be sorry. So to begin, check and recheck your jointer fence and sawblades for perfect squareness. Unless you want to move the stops on your door jambstheyll either be nailed or rabbeted into the jambsits best to make your doors the same thickness as the ones youre replacing. Next edge-joint one edge, rip to width, then edge-joint the sawn edge. Crosscut the rails, but leave them a little long until

PANEL

A slight 5 bevel is cut into the stile, with the low side toward the direction of closure.

Stile grooves, 8 in. wide and 3 4 in. deep, allow a full inch of leeway for the panel to move across the grain.

Bore for lockset before assembling the door.

V-grooved panel is made of 1x4s planed to a thickness of 5 8 in.

Strong-enough biscuits save time

A double row of #20 biscuits, rather than a mortise and tenon, saves time and provides plenty of strength to hold a modest 5 8-in. panel.

Panel is set into a 1 2-in. groove on the rails.

To avoid a messy finish, panel is given a washcoat of shellac before it goes into the frame.

you determine the final length. The last step is to plow the grooves in the frame for the panel. I cut grooves 5 8 in. wide and 1 2 in. deep across the length of the rails. In the stiles, I cut grooves 3 4 in. deep, giving the panel a full inch of leeway to move across the grain. Also, I stop the grooves so they dont run far into the joint area. Before we go on, lets back up a minute. By making a door in your own shop, you
M AY / J U N E 19 9 8

71

Measuring without a rule

When it comes to fitting parts precisely in trim carpentry and cabinet work, a tape measure is about as useful as a baseball bat in a billiard game. A tape measure has all those spaces between the gradations, and in the real world, things seldom fall right on the mark. So you wind up rounding off to the nearest one-sixteenth. Say youre measuring for a door. The jamb is almost 2911 16 in. wide, and you want clearances of 1 16 in. on the hinge side and 332 in. on the latch side. One stile is a smidge over 458 in. wide, the other just shy of 51 4 in. So to cut the rails to the correct length and make the entire door come out to the right width, you do some eighth-grade arithmetic, then measure and mark the cut. Right? No. Not if you want a precise fit every time. To get that kind of fit, you need a more reliable, more empirical reference. Lots of cabinetmakers and trim carpenters use a twostick story pole, which, as the name suggests, tells the whole story.

WORK OUT OF THE JAMB

Mark once, cut once. A nickel spacer on the top of the stile and two wedges on the floor hold the stile steady. A centerline is marked alongside the strike plate (above). Laying out the hinge locations with a striking knife (left) is easy work with the stile clamped to the hinges.

can dimension it precisely to the opening before you assemble it. This saves the tedious trial-hanging, unhinging and trimming that carpenters have to endure. The best measuring method that Ive found for this kind of work is described in the box above. So here Ill stick to explaining the standard clearances between door and jamb. Old-time carpenters called it nickel and dime, meaning a skinny 1 16 in. (dime) clearance at the top and a fat 1 16 in. (nickel) clearance on each side. My carpenter hero Tom Law takes exception to the traditional wisdom. Law calls for 1 16 in. on the hinge side, 3 32 in. on the latch side and 1 16 in. at the top. Bottom clearances typically call for 1 2 in. for vinyl floors, 3 4 in. for hardwoods and 11 2 in. for carpet. Once youve measured the opening and have determined the dimensions of the door, you just may have one more problem. In heaven, square is square, but on earth, door jambs in older houses seldom are. So check the head jamb for square. If it is square, fine. If its not and if youre going to build and hang a bunch of doors, its worth your time to make a big adjustable bevel from two pieces of scrap wood. Check for squareness, or lack thereof, from the hinge side, and adjust your bevel to the angle made by the hinge-side jamb and the head jamb. If the head jamb is out of square, you can bet the threshold is too. While youre checking the angle of the threshold, heres a tip that can save re-trimming a door after its hung: Adjust the bevel to the threshold-to-hinge-side angle.

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FINE WOODWORKING

To make one, take some 1 8-in. rippings from the edge of a jointed 2x4, and saw the ends nice and square. When they make contact with the opposite side of the jamb, clamp them together, and mark a line across the one onto the other. Label it opening width. To figure the other door, all you do is measure from this mark the total clearance you want (in this case, 532 in.), and make another mark labeled door width. To determine the exact width of the rails, clamp the stiles together, butt a rail against them, tape the story sticks together at the door-width mark, and measure off the back side of the stiles onto the rail stock. To get stile length, use a longer pair of sticks in the same way. No squintyeyed reading of 1 32-in. hash marks, no rounding off to the nearest gradation, no fraction conversions and middle-school math, no trimming to fit later. A tape measure will get you in the ballpark. A story pole will sink your eightball every time, in one shot. J.L.

Then holding the bevel tightly against the hinge-side jamb, swing the bevel out across the floor in the angle the door will swing. Any lumps or humps in the floor that will prevent the door from swinging fully open will show up immediately. Once youve assembled the door to all the other specs, you can transfer the angles from the bevel gauge to the top and bottom of the door and trim to fit in the shop.

hinges, bore for the lockset and mortise for the latch plate. You can fit all the hardware to the stiles before attaching the rest of the door to them. This makes the work easier, especially if youre nursing a bad case of bench back. Bevel the edge of the doorThe narrow outside edge of the lock-side stile should be beveled to about 5, with the low side of the bevel toward the direction of closure. Whether youre doing this on your jointer or with a handplane, dont wait until the door is assembled to do it. And dont

worry about the bevel interfering with clamping during glue-up. The angle is too slight to throw things off. Install the locksetTo locate the centers of the lockset bores, hold the lock-side stile against the head jamb using a nickel spacer on top and two wedges underneath. The centerline of the existing latch opening will be the centerline for both lockset bores (see the inset photo on the facing page). Follow the template included in the lockset box to find the back-set axis for the face bore and the longitudinal center for the

Fit the hardware before assembly

Unlike carpenters, you dont have to wrestle a whole door around to mortise for

KEEP IT IN THE SHOP

Adding detail to an unassembled frame. Work moves quickly throughout the shop when you dont have to haul a heavy door from one work area to the next. With the stile clamped securely in the bench, a series of chopping cuts and a smooth pass pares the waste away for a clean mortise that fits every time (above). To prevent tearout when boring for the lockset, drill the beveled edge first, then make two half-depth face bores (right).

When everything is square. Work blocks clamped to a sawhorse hold the door steady while its dry-fit. Using a polyurethane glue allows plenty of time to make sure that everything is flush, square and aligned. Just remember to mist the biscuits with water to help the glue cure properly.

transverse bore. Bore diameters are fairly standard, regardless of brand1 in. for the latch barrel (transverse bore) and 21 8 in. for the knob barrel (face bore). I use Forstner bits for all the doors. If you bore through the edge first, then run the face bore half-depth on each side, you wont risk the nasty tearout that comes when the 1-in. Forstner breaks through into the larger hole (see the bottom right photo on p. 73). Mount the hingesLaying out the hinge locations for an existing jamb is simple. Again, put a nickel on top of the stile, wedge it from the floor against the head jamb and clamp the stile to the hinges. Use a striking knife to mark the mortises directly off the hinge leaves. Then back in the shop, with the stile in a

vise, you can cut the mortises in whatever fashion you prefer, knowing that you wont have to jigger the fit when you hang the door.

The high craft of door hanging

In the traditional sense, door hanging is a mystery you dont have to worry about. Thats because, if youve followed the method described here, youve already done it. You have actually incorporated hanging the door into the very process of making the door. So after you have applied the finish, mounted the hinges and installed the lockset, all thats left is to slide the hinge pins home and shut the door. Click.

A door that travels well. The author uses the same door design for a clean look in the master bedroom.

John Lively is the editor-in-chief of The Taunton Press.

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FINE WOODWORKING

Cabinet Doors
Construct joints for fine furniture, glass panels or cabinets to go
BY STEVE LATTA

Three Ways to Make

Full mortise-and-tenon joints make this the best method for constructing fine furniture. Additionally, the tenon's offset shoulder adds rigidity to the joint. The profiled corner must be mitered for the joint to close.

n a perfect world all cabinet doors would be constructed using stout mortise-and-tenon joints, built to last generations. When I reproduce an 18th-century piece, I build doors whose joints will outlast these achy joints of mine. My clients pay for that, and I would not sleep at night giving them anything less. At the other end of the spectrum, would I go to the same effort for a bathroom vanity that will end up on the curb after the next remodel? Probably not. There are faster ways to make a door. A door meant for hiding everything from towels to toilet cleansers doesn't have to rise to the level of a hutch. I could come up with a dozen or more methods to join doors, but there are three that will solve most needs: doors for the finest furniture, doors for glass panels and low-budget doors that you need to get done in a hurry. Best method for strong, classic frames After cutting the stock to its rough size, mold a profile and cut a slot in all of the frame members. Although sometimes I'll use just the sticking portion of a cope-and-stick set to cut the profile and groove in one pass, I often resort to standard router bits. By mixing and matching standard bits, I have an infinite

There's no offset shoulder on the tenon in this joint, because an offset shoulder would get in the way of the rabbet for the glass panel. Nonetheless, the frame, built with full mortise-and-tenon joints, is very solid.

Cope-and-stick bits are used to machine the profile, groove and stub tenons. To strengthen the weak stub tenon, glue a plywood panel in the frame.

Shape the rails and stiles on the router

Rails must have offset shoulders. Guide

table. The sticking portion of a cope-and-stick bit cuts the profile and groove in one pass. Set the fence flush with the bearing.

the stock along the tablesaw fence and push it using a backer block for extra support.

Cutting the cheeks without a tenoning jig. The rail is pushed along an auxiliary fence clamped to the tablesaw's fence. A backer block prevents tearout.

variety of profiles available to me. Cope-and-stick bits come in just a handful of profiles. To cut the slot, you can use a slot-cutting bit or a dado head on the tablesaw.

cut the mortises to within in. of the outside edges of the doors. But if you're making doors whose backs will be rabbeted for an overlay construction, leave at least in. beyond the mortise. That way, when you cut the rabbet around the perimeter of the door frame, you won't cut into the joint. Next, cut tenons on the rails. This involves a couple of setups on of triangulation to the joint, which makes it very strong, and it looks good from both sides. Begin by cutting the shoulders on the tablesaw, which will require two setups. Then cut the cheeks. To account for shrinkage, I prefer to machine tenons a hair oversized, then let the stock settle overnight. For a tight fit, handplane the cheeks until the joint slips together

Mortises are cut next. These are usually located on the stile members. Cut them with your preferred tool, the same thickness as the width of the groove, flush with the walls of the groove. I generally

the tablesaw because the rear shoulder is offset more than the front shoulder. The offset has two advantages: It adds an element

Make final adjustments using a chisel. The back wall of the groove on the stiles must be removed up to the miter. On both rails and stiles, use a guide blocka piece of scrap cut at 45 and clamped to the

stockto miter the inside corners of the profile.

snugly. Lastly, the molded profile must be mitered at the inside corners. I do this by hand, using a chisel and a simple jig. To locate the miter, fit a rail to a stile as far as it will go, mark the inside corner,
disassemble and clamp the jig to the stock. Then shave away the

waste with a chisel. This method produces an exceptional joint that can be improved
by draw-boring or wedging either a blind or through-tenon (see FWW #132, p. 74). With a typical -in.-long tenon, the amount of

you typically end up with when using cope-and-stick router bits. It's unlikely that you'll ever have to repair a door built this way.

glue surface is about four times that of a -in. stub tenon, the kind

Door frames for glass panels and more

When a project calls for doors with glass panels, you need a frame with a rabbet on the back to house the glass. Although you could

use the previous method for glass-paneled doors, it's not ideal. Be-

Use a sticking bit or make your own profile from stock router bits. A straight bit, left, a cove bit and a slot cutter were used to mold

Shoulders are the same height on all sides of the rails. After cutting the shoulders, raise

Miter both walls of the groove. Using a guide block and chisel, pare away the miter, which in

the blade high enough to remove the cheeks.

this profile. As an added touch, both sides of this frame were profiled.

this construction will show on both the front and back of the door.

cause of the offset shoulder cut on the rails, a rabbet cut into the

back of the frame will also end up offset and won't look good. After milling the rail and stile stock to rough sizes, I run the mold-

ing. Cut the profile using either of the previous methods: by using the sticking portion of a cope-and-stick bit or by mixing and matching standard router bits. Next, cut the mortises, same as before. The tenons, however, are cut differently. Forget about setting up for the extra shoulder cut on the back of the rails. Cut all of the tenons with continuous shoulders all the way around. Again, make them a hair thick and
let them sit overnight. As in the previous method, the molded profile must be mitered for the joint to close. But because there's not an offset on the shoulders of the rails, both the front (the profiled edge) and rear walls of the slots must join in a miter. Use the same jig as mentioned earlier and a wide chisel to miter both walls at the same time. When you dry-fit the frame, you'll notice the back looks

funny because of the miter. But

A glass panel is fitted from the rear. After ripping away the rear wall of the groove, insert the glass and secure it with small strips of wood nailed or screwed in place.

for glass panels, rip off the rear

walls of the groove, which eliminates the miter. To hold the glass,

I'll often rely on tinted glazing putty alone. You could also rip strips of the same species of wood and screw or nail them in place, mitered at the corners. (Cut the bottom piece in two for ease of removal should the glass need
replacement.) If you like this construction method (it's faster than the first) and want to apply it to floating wood panels, here's a trick to make the back of the frame look

Same method, two applications. By profiling both walls of the slot (top), you can make an elegant frame for a solid panel.
Or rip off the rear wall (bottom)

and fit a glass panel.

as elegant as the front. Run a profile along the back inside edge of

Cope-and-stick bits do most of the work. The sticking portion of the bit cuts the profile and groove in one pass. These bits are best suited for

-in.- to

-in.-thick stock.

the frame. That funny-looking miter is transformed into an elegant inside comer, and the door will look good on both sides.

Cope-and-stick joints need reinforcement

A lot of inexpensive kitchen cabinets are built using cope-andstick router bits. These tools cut the profile, groove and stub tenons in two quick operations. Many of these bits leave you with -in.-long tenons. That's a slight improve-

joined this way. A combination of seasonal movement and an occasional slammed door will take a toll.

ment, but I wouldn't put solid-wood floating panels in door frames

-in.-long tenons. (For more on the styles of cope-and-stick bits, see the story below.) Some router-bit manufacturers, such as Jesada, offer bits that cut

on a door, and the stub tenon will split off the molded edge. The stub-tenon-to-groove glue joint is another weak area. There's not a lot of surface area to glue, and if you mill these parts a little loose
or the wood shrinks, the joint will fail.

The weak point of cope-and-stick doors is the profiled edge. Routing the profile removes a fair amount of wood. Yet this area is expected to do double duty as a mortise wall. Pull or push too hard

Cope-and-stick router bits

There are three types of cope-and-stick (sometimes called rail and stile) router bits: reversible, combination and matched. All must be used in a router table. And although each bit has a bearing mounted on its shaft, I always use a router fence set flush with the bearing for extra support. To understand these bits, it helps to define their components. The sticking is the profile and groove that is cut along the edge (long grain) of the stile and rail. The coping is the reverse pattern that is cut on the end (end grain) of the rail. The coping cutter leaves a stub tenon as deep as the groove for the panel. For a tight-fitting joint, the bits must be machined to high tolerances, and

REVERSIBLE BIT COMBINATION BIT

MATCHED SET

Cope-and-stick bits are made three different ways. Reversible bits must be disassembled between coping and sticking cuts. Shims are used to adjust the fit. Combination bits are raised
or lowered, depending on the cut. They may also be shimmed. Matched sets have separate

coping and sticking cutters. No shims are used.

Rout the matching coping. Use a backer block when cutting the coping along the end grain of the rails.

some woodworkers who try to beef up the stub tenons with dowels or loose tenons and then install floating solid-wood panels. They can help, but I've seen these fail prematurely. On most pieces of furniture, we're not talking about a lot of joints. Making full mortise-and-tenon joints just makes sense to me.
Steve Latta is an instructor at the Thaddeus Stevens Institute of Technology in Lancaster, Pa.

To strengthen these joints, use a plywood panel (or other manmade product) and glue it on all four sides to the grooves. I know

Where cope-and-stick joints fail. The molded edge, which has been reduced in thickness, is a weak spot in this joint. That's why it's a good idea to glue plywood panels into the grooves of the door frame, which will produce a much sturdier door overall.

this isn't always the case. If you can't get a joint to fit after much trial and error, contact the manufacturer and see about getting a replacement. All of these bits require set-up time. Once you have a setup that produces good joints, make samples and keep them for reference. Although prices vary greatly among manufacturers, reversible bits tend to be the least expensive of the three types. They're also the most difficult to use. After routing the sticking, a locknut must be removed in order to flipflop the top cutter before machining the coping. Shims may have to be fitted between the bearing and top cutter to fine-tune the fit.

Combination bits, which are intermediately priced, have all three cutters positioned on the bit's shaft. To change between the coping and sticking cuts, the bit is either raised or lowered. Again, shimming may be necessary to get a good fit. With some bits, it's just hard to get a good fit; either the tenon is snug and the coping is loose, or vice versa. The most expensive option is to purchase a set of matched bits that are machined to complement each other. Although I've never conducted an in-depth comparison test, among a

random sampling of bits I had on hand, the matched set produced the
best fit.S.L

Reversible bits are adjusted by using shims. A good-fitting coping and snug-fitting stub tenon
require some trial-and-error when adjusting the

distance between the cutters.

Arched Top
Make arched raised-panel doors
THE RADIUS ARM
The radius arm consists of a piece of hardwood, a wooden circle and a piece of Masonite. Slots in the arm, which accept the adjustable pivot point, are cut on a router table. A tenon at the end of the arm fits into a mortise in the wooden circle. Stick-on measuring tape measures the distance between the pivot point and the router bit. The Masonite backing adds strength and provides a base for the router. Hardwood, 3 4 in. by 3 in.

B Y

B I L L

E W I N G

Masonite backing, 1 4 in. thick Hardwood stop, 3 4 in. by 1 in. Plywood, 1 2 in. by 3 1 2 in. by 18 in. Plywood, 3 4 in. by 12 in. by 29 3 4 in.

n woodworking, as in architecture, arches can be both decorative and functional. Positioned below the main structure, an arch adds strength without the visual weight of heftier underpinnings. Placed higher up, such as in the upper rail of a bookcase, an arch lends a bit of elegance. Adding an arch to the upper rail of a cabinet door is also an easy way to refine the sometimes boxy look of frame-andpanel construction. I wanted to find a quick way to cut arched doors so that I could offer this design option to my clients. After a little planning and experimentation, and in one quick afternoon, I was able to make an adjustable jig that allows me to cut arched raised-panel doors of almost any size. The few hours spent building the jig proved worth the time; over the last four years Ive used it to make countless doors for the kitchen cabinets that are the mainstay of my business. The only way to get uniformly fair arches is to work from two accurate templates one for the rail and one for the panel. Each door width also requires a different set of templates. Using the two-piece jig shown here, I can quickly and efficiently cut a set of panel and rail templates to fit a wide range of cabinet-door sizes. By using these templates in conjunction with rail- and stile-cutting bits, you can cut the door parts for a whole set of kitchen cabinets in a day.
FINE WOODWORKING

THE BASE
The main body of the jig base is made of 3 4-in. plywood with routed slots that house the sliding pivot point. The 4-in.wide recessed template well is as deep as the template material is thick 1 4 in. on this jig. Rail templates butt the top of the well; panel templates butt the bottom. The bottom of the base is covered with Masonite.

Butt panel template here when cutting.

Butt rail template here when cutting.

Masonite backing, 1 4 in. thick

The key to this jig is that it can be adjusted in two different ways. The radius arm of the jig (the top piece in the drawing above) allows you to make arcs of different radii. The sliding pivot point in the base (the bottom piece) allows you to move the center point of the arcs radius to accommodate varying widths of door rails. Another great thing about this jig is that it can be adjusted while the router is in place. To cut out the

panel and rail templates, I always use a plunge router with a 1 4-in. straight bit.

A 1-in. arch looks best on cabinet doors

Before making panel and rail templates, you have to establish a few design parameters: the depth of the arch and the width of the rail. After some experimentation, Ive found that a 1-in. arch looks best on most
Drawings: Jim Richey

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Cabinet Doors
of any size with an adjustable jig and a router
Measuring tape

SLIDING PIVOT POINTS

The sliding pivot points in the base and the radius arm must fit snugly into their corresponding slots. The author puts a 5 32-in. brass rod in the radius arms pivot point and a mating brass tube in the bases pivot point. The rod and tube provide a smooth, precise connection between the radius arm and the jig base. Rod and tubing can be found at most hobby shops.

Pivot point in radius arm

Captive nut Machine screw Brass rod

Brass tube

JIGS CUT TEMPL ATES THAT HELP BUILD DOORS

To build arched raised-panel doors, you must have two templatesone for the panel and one for the rail. The authors jig adjusts so that you can cut a matching set of templates. The templates are used to cut fair and complementary curves on a doors panel and rail.

Pivot point in jig base

Machine screw

Captive nut Radius arm

Side view

Drywall screw Jig base

cabinet doors. An arch of less than 1 in. leaves the rail too meaty and the arch too subtle. Making an arch with a depth of more than 1 in. cuts down on rail width so much that it appears weakened. For both aesthetics and uniformity, I always use 23 8 in. for my rail and stile widths. I maintain this 23 8-in. dimension at the midpoint of the arc and increase this measurement by 1 in. at each end of the
Photos: Matthew Teague

rail. These measurements remain constant regardless of the rail length.

Templates are easy to make

Once the jig is up and running, youre ready to make templates. While its possible to determine the measurements by trial and error each time you set out to make a template, I refer to a graph (see p. 78) that
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RO U T I N G T H E T E M P L AT E S

Making the rail template. With brads securing the template blank in place, a router outfitted with a 1 4-in. straight bit cuts a smooth arch in the rail template.

A slight adjustment. To cut the panel template, increase the radius on the jigs arm 1 2 in. to allow for the bit diameter and the panel tongue.

A matching pair. Once the radius has been adjusted, tack a Masonite blank onto the jigs well. Cut the panel template with the router in a single pass.

Finding the perfect curve

When you have to handle different-sized arches in a single piece of furniture or in a set of cabinets, its imperative that the height of the arches be uniform. Even small irregularities in the arches can be seen at a glance. Its possible to use trial and error to determine the measurements each time you make a template of different rail lengths, but I plotted points on a graph (right) that allow me to see quickly what the radius of the arc needs to be. These measurements will give you a height of 1 in., a suitable arch for most cabinets.

FORMULA FOR SUCCESS

28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20
Radius (inches)

I once had to build doors that required an arch with a radius longer than my jig could handle. I found the radius through trial and errornot my favorite method. Since then, Ive avoided the trial of all of these errors using a simple algebra formula my son-inlaw (an engineer) derived: R2 = (R-X)2 +(L/2)2 , Where R = arc radius, L = cord (the distance between the ends of the arc), X = height at the midpoint of the arc. Dont panicthe formula reduces to a more manageable size when you substitute the height of the door arch (in this case, 1 in.) for X. It becomes: R = 1 2 + L2/8. For example, if your rail length is 8 in.: R = 1 2 + 82/8, R = 1 2 + 64/8, R = 81 2 in. For arch heights other than 1 in., such as in the top face frame of a display cabinet, just substitute the desired height for X. Ive crunched the numbers for 2-in., 3-in. and 4-in. heights. 2 in.: R = 1 + L2/16; 3 in.: R = 9 6 + L2/24; 4 in.: R = 2 + L2/32.
6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Rail length (inches)

19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5

RADII FOR COMMON RAIL LENGTHS

Rail length 6 in. 7 in. 8 in. 9 in. 10 in. 11 in. 12 in. 13 in. 14 in. 15 in. 16 in. Radius 5 in. 6.625 in. 8.5 in. 10.625 in. 13 in. 15.625 in. 18.5 in. 21.625 in. 25 in. 28.625 in. 32.5 in.

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FINE WOODWORKING

tells the radius and pivot-point measurements needed to cut templates for various rail lengths. If I need to cut an arch with a depth of other than 1 in., I use the simple formula shown on the facing page to gauge the radius. To make a rail template, first install a 1 4-in. Masonite template blank31 2 in. wide and 2 in. longer than the rail length against the hardwood stop in the recessed well on the jigs base. Set the brass rod in the radius-arm pivot point into the brass tube in the bases pivot point. The pivot point on the radius arm slides and is secured with a machine screw on the side of the arm. Loosen the screw, and move the pivot point to the correct rail length, then retighten it. Then loosen the adjustment screw on the pivot point in the base and retighten it slightly shy of its final position. Measure the distance between the ends of the arc and keep adjusting the pivot point on the jigs base until this end-to-end measurement equals the desired rail length. Now youre ready to rout the arch (see the left photo on the facing page). Once the rail template has been cut, move on to the panel template. The arc for the panel template will have to be slightly larger than that of the rail template. As you move from making the rail template to making the panel template, you must increase the length of the radius to accommodate the bit diameter because the router is cutting on the opposite side of the bit. You also have to lengthen the radius arm to create a tongue on the panel. Lengthen the radius arm by 1 2 in. to compensate for the 1 4-in. bit diameter and 1 4-in. panel tongue (see the middle photo on the facing page). Start with a template blank that is 3 in. wide and the same length as the rail template. Butt it against the rear stop and attach it with brads. Once the pivot point has been adjusted, simply rout the arc (see the right photo on the facing page). After cutting the templates, you can start building doors.

SHAPING THE RAIL

Roughing out the rail. Shape one end of the rail on the router table, then cut away the excess material on the bandsaw.

Cut the profile and curve in one pass. With the template tacked into place, use a railcutting bit to shape the profile and fair the edge.
Template Rail-cutting bit

Workpiece

and bottom railsand trim them to size with a crosscut sled on my tablesaw. Using the tablesaw, cut stock for the upper and lower rail 31 2 in. and 21 2 in. wide, respectively, and leave them 1 2 in. longer than the finished length. Because each stile is 23 8 in. wide and you lose 3 8 in. of each edge when you cut the inner edge profile, the rail length is 4 in. less than the overall door width. Cut the stiles 23 8 in. wide and 1 4 in. longer than the finished door height.

Build doors oversized and trim them to fit

Somewhere, perhaps in a parallel universe, frame-and-panel doors always glue up square, and the stile ends are always even with the rails. But in my shop, reality reigns. To correct minor imperfections in assembly, I build my doors 1 4 in. long adding 1 8 in. to the width of both the top

Rail-cutting sequence is key

It is important to follow a particular sequence when shaping the rails and stiles, because you could end up trying to shape the upper rail ends without a straight edge to rest against the router tables miter gauge, or you could encounter serious chipout problems when the stile-cutting bit exits the arch in the upper rail.

Place the rail template on the back of the upper rail and align the end of the arch with the left (when viewed from the front) end of the rail and draw the arc. With a railcutting bit in your router table, shape the left end of the upper rail and the right end of the bottom rail. Remove the waste material on a bandsaw (see the top photo above), tack the template into position and shape the rails arch on the router table using the stile-cutting bit with a pilot bearing on top. This is a small piece to cut on a router table, so use a hold-down jig (see the bottom photo above). While the bit is still in place, go ahead and shape the inside edges of the stiles and lower rail, as well as a scrap piece of the same stock to be used in dryfitting the panel. Finally, cut the upper rail and lower rail to length on a tablesaw or miter box. The only thing left is to replace
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S H A P I N G T H E PA N E L

Trim the panel flush. Tack the template in place and trim the panel flush on the router table using a straight bit with a pilot bearing.
Straight bit

Raise the panel. When turning a flat panel into a raised one, you can make a safer cut by using both the fence and the pilot bearing.
Panel-raising bit

Cut the panel to rough shape. Trace the arc from the template onto the panel and trim the waste material away on the bandsaw.

Workpiece

Template

Workpiece

the stile-cutting bit with the rail-cutting bit and shape the remaining rail ends.

A dry run avoids headaches

Dry-fitting the frame allows you to take exact measurements for the panel. Be sure to allow for a 1 4-in. tongue on all four edges. Rip the panel to exact width so that the arch of the panel will match up with that of the rail. Leave the length of the panel about 1 in. long so that the arch doesnt have to be cut to the very edge of the panel. Using a framing square, draw a line across the back of the panel, approximately 11 2 in. from the top. Use the square to align the arch of the panel template with

the line youve just drawn, making sure that it meets each edge of the panel, and draw the arc. Rough-cut the panels arch on the bandsaw (see the left photo above) and tack the template back into place. To ensure a nice, smooth edge, clean up the cut with a bearing-driven straight bit on your router table, and trim the panel to finished length (see the middle photo above). Now you can shape the panel using a panel-raising bit with a top-mounted pilot bearing. Use the fence in the normal fashion for the straight edges. As you shape the curved edge, register the panel against both the fence and the pilot bearing (see the right photo above). This is safe, provid-

ed the panel is large enough to grip firmly and you dont try to hog off too much material in a single pass. Use a scrap piece of stile stock to check that you raise the panel to the correct depth. All that remains is to cut the back rabbet in the panel so that it fits the groove in the rails and stiles. Once everything falls into place, some glue and a couple of clamps bring everything together. Measure the doors exact length off the cabinet and trim the door to length. When you hang the door, the elegant arch serves as a subtle reminder that it was designed with care.

Bill Ewing is a cabinetmaker in Girard, Ohio.

Arched grain for arched doors

When you build custom arched doors, you have the opportunity to use grain that accentuates the design. My general guidelines are simplestraight grain for the frames and more striking grain patterns for the panels. For the upper rail of an arched door, look for grain with a slight curve that follows the curve of the arch. Dont expect a perfect match, but any slight curve in the grain will help. Laying out the grain pattern for a door panel is more complex. In general, look for a grain pattern that arches upward so that it draws your eye to the arch in the door. This grain pattern is common in most flatsawn lumber.

Good grain, bad grain. Whenever possible, the grain patterns should echo the arch (above) rather than fight it (below).

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To avoid any confusion, when I refer to lipped doors, I am not talking about how they fit to the opening, as in the case of lipped overlay doors that

are rabbeted along all of their outside edges, but rather how they fit to each

Use when both doors need to be opened independently of one another.

corporate inset doors, and the cabinets do not have center dividers. Traditional cabinets, such as secretaries or those designed for valuables, require locking doors, which are usually lipped along the center stiles. Glassed cabinets may or may not require a lock, but their doors should be lipped or covered with

other. The examples in this article all in-

used primarily for storage. That rules out

lipped doors, except in the most traditional designs.

an astragal to keep light from peeking through the two center stiles. Doors that open independently of one another are preferred for units that are

Back-bevel the edges of the center stiles. A 2 bevel will prevent the stiles from scrap-

ing when a door is opened.

the possibility of the doors twisting. It is a horrible feeling to see your carefully selected mahogany parts peeling off in every direction as you rip them to size. To minimize such mishaps, lay out all of the pieces for the entire project on rough
stock at the same time. Also, pay close attention to the grain, and make sure all of the rails come from a single piece of stock with the grain flowing door to door. The to be locked up anyway. And it is awkward having to open one door and unlatch the Astragals are usually found on full-sized French doors where they serve as both a

Careful stock preparation can prevent problems Regardless of the style of door, take precautions at the start of the project to reduce

center stiles should be cut from one board

ripped in half. Mill this piece long so that

you can adjust the grain match up or down

to get the best transition across the stiles. Door stock should be milled in two steps. Rough-cut all of the parts in. oversized. Then sticker them to relieve any stresses

second to retrieve a plate or book. If executed properly, unlipped doors look very clean. To minimize the gap, back-bevel the inside edges of the center
stiles so the doors can swing without hitting each other. The back bevel is slight,

design detail and as a doorstop. On cabinetry, they are sometimes added to prevent light from shining through a gap between doors. Although I generally think they look
like an afterthought, astragals have their place. An astragal should be centered over the gap between the two stiles and glued to the front (right) door.

the joints. Make the doors about in. oversized in length and width and fit them to the case opening. This extra in. comes in handy for a case that may be out of square.

the stock to final thickness and machine

and allow the stock to acclimate. Then mill

Unlipped doors have their place

As much as I like the aesthetics of lipped

A lot of hardware is available for cabinetry. The European hardware, particularly 35mm cup hinges, offers three-way adjustment, which allows for a lot of fudging when aligning a wall of doors. For furniture, I prefer traditional brass hardware, which allows for a little adjustment as well
if mounted properly. For more on mount-

about 2, and is shaped using a jointer, edge sander or handplane. Final sanding should open it up to a heavy in.

Lipped doors are traditional I really like the look and action of lipped doors. For sophisticated pieces such as secretary desks or breakfronts, lipped doors are the rale, and I wouldn't build these pieces any other way. A lip is essential on a cabinet with glass doors and interior lightthe center stiles looks like a detail the cabinetmaker simply forgot to consider. Lipped doors should be set up so that the rear door (the one that opens last, generally the left door) is secured to the cabinet by
ing. Light shining through the gap between

doors, they don't make a lot of sense in a case with doors that don't latch or lock to

ing catches, see the story on pp. 76-77.

the things we place in cabinets don't need

each other or for pieces that are more functional than formal. Quite frankly, most of

Hiding the gap with an astragal

An astragal is a piece of molding added to an unlipped door to cover the center gap.

(typically the right one) opens first and should lip over the rear door and latch or

a flush bolt or elbow catch. The front door lock to it. This arrangement keeps the

hardware from getting mangled or from scratching the doors, It is essential to calculate the lip into the initial dimensions of the piece. When the
doors are hanging, the width of both stiles

should look the same. Because the rear

wide by half the thickness of the stock. The

in.-wide rabbet cut into the back of the center stile. The extra in. allows for final fitting and keeps the doors from binding. After trimming the doors to fit the opening, mount them so that the front door hangs up slightly on the rear door. Make the final fit using a block plane. Shave away until there's a in, gap down the the doors bind on the inside, shave a tad off the rear door using a rabbet plane.
The rear door needs some sort of catchAn elbow catch or a flush bolt can
center, back-beveling the edge about 2. If front door should have a corresponding

rear door's center stile must be about in. wider than the front door's center stile. The rear door should receive a rabbet in.

door is partially covered by the front, the

ment of the catch to prevent it from chipping china or stemware. Don't skimp on the hardware; opt for cast brasses. Cheesy, stamped and plated hardware detracts from the entire piece.

be used to secure the rear door to the case. For a really clean look, locate a flush bolt at the top and bottom of the door. Flush bolts can also help hold the doors true should a slight twist ever develop. Elbow catches typically mount to a fixed shelf located toward the bottom of the opening. Give some thought to the place-

a little stop block to prevent the doors from swinging into the opening. I either mount a small block at the top of the case
bottom shelf. When choosing a lock, pick one that fits the character of the piece. For period work

Regardless of the catch, I always mount

or mortise a small half-moon into the

Astragals can be milled on the router table. The shape can be a simple halfround or a more complex shape as shown here. Use a wide board for better control when shaping, then rip off the molding. Glue the astragal to the front (right) door.

An astragal will hide an oversized gap or a

slight twist in the doors.

or fine furniture, I typically use a surfacemount lock, not a mortised lock. For a mortised lock to work properly, a very unattractive notch needs to be cut into the rear door. Not so with surface-mount locks. Choose the lock by width so that the keyhole ends up near the center of the stile. As

LIPPED DOORS

The traditional approach for period pieces or when the cabinet has glass doors and

light would shine through the

gap between center stiles.

The lips may be milled on the tablesaw using a

dado blade. Make the lips half the thickness of the stile stock.

Plane the lip of the front (right) door with a slight back bevel. Keep stock oversized so that parts can be planed to fit for a fine gap.

ADDING A BEAD
Use as a design element or to help draw attention away from doors that are slightly twisted.

Fine beads are

best made using a beading

tool. Router bits

usually leave a

wide groove or quirk. The bead

goes on the front

(right) door.

an alternative to locks, pivoting knobs with

catches work well, too.

Installing bolts/catches and locks

Traditional hardware requires precise mounting and doesn't offer the user very much in
the way of follow-up adjustments. There are, however, a few tricks to simplifying installation. And some hardware can be modified slightly to allow for a little tweaking.
DOUBLE-BALL CATCHES

A few good reasons for beads

details on a piece or stand alone. A bead will break up a pair of two wide stiles and
In terms of design, a bead can tie to other

bring balance to a piece. A bead can also help if the grain match between the center

stiles is less than ideal. When two doors meet in the middle, it looks sloppy if the doors don't close flush to each other. A bead is a good way to hide beads, pick a small bit. I prefer to grind a scratch stock (see FWW#134, p. 42) for my beading tool to create a fine bead with a bits cut a rather wide quirk. With lipped doors, I always put the bead
a little twist. If you're using a router to cut

very narrow quirk or groove. Most router on the front (right) door. By doing so I can

Use a double-ball catch when doors need to be opened independently of one another. This type of catch also acts as a doorstop. Ball catches are available in a number of sizes. I prefer to use only the smallest catches, no matter the size of the door, because the larger units are too clunky. A ball catch has two parts; the
teardrop male plate mounts to the door,

and the female half, which contains a pair

make both center stiles the same width.

rabbet on the rear stile.) To keep the width of the front stile look-

(The front bead is the same width as the

of spring-loaded bearings, mounts inside the case. In many instances, a block must be added at the top of a case to mount
the hardware. The female part has a pair

Double-ball catches can be used with lipped or unlipped doors. The female part, shown with the male half engaged, is screwed

ing the same, the width of the bead needs to be considered from the very beginning. It's not a good idea to add a bead at the last

of screws for adjusting the spring tension. To mount a ball catch, first place a piece of double-sided tape on the back (the face that will mount against the
door) of the male piece, then engage it with the female part. Mount the female part to the case with screws. Close the door, then back off the adjustment screws

to a block inside the top of the case.

for a center bead. I took an equal amount off each door to keep things balanced. I then filled the gap by gluing a bead onto

hide a twist on a set of doors that didn't call

minute to compensate for twist. But there has been a time or two when I needed to

the front door. Not the best strategy, but it

solved a problem!

to allow the parts to disengage easily. The tape will hold the male part in position. Drill the holes for the male plate and attach it. Do the same for the other door. If a catch closes too abruptly, open the

The approach depends on the project

The strategy for a single piece of furniture is very different than for a room full of cabinets. For a fine piece of furniture, I lip the
doors and use a pair of flush bolts with a hardware from Londonderry Brasses because the company produces historically

body cylinder and clip a bit off the spring. If you have several to install, buy lighterduty springs, available at hardware stores.
WOODEN STOPS

Temporary fastener. Double-sided tape on

the male half will hold it in place on the door

so that accurate pilot holes may be drilled.

lock or pivoting latch. I usually buy my

accurate hardware. I'll add a bead if it's part of the design or if I have to hide some twist. For a less formal piece, I may or may not to those original four questions: Is a lock
with light coming through? Should the cabinet be easy to access? And is it a formal, lip, depending on the customer's storage and lighting needs. It always comes down

needed? Will the cabinet have glass doors

period piece?

Flush bolts and bullet catches won't stop a door from swinging in and banging against a shelf. Doors with this type of hardware require a stop. I use stops on most doors regardless of the hardware. I usually make my own, a simple half-round button slightly tapered at the base. It fits into a mortise chopped into the base of the case and is held there by a drop of glue. The button is centered and acts as a stop for both doors.
Doors with latches and elbow catches require a doorstop. Mortise the stop into the
base of the case, keeping it centered.

Steve Latta is an instructor at the Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology in Lancaster, Pa.

FLUSH BOLTS AND ELBOW CATCHES

A flush bolt goes on the rear (left) door, the one that opens last. Install the bolt first. Mark the location using a knife, then rough out the mortise with a chisel or laminate trimmer and finish off with a chisel. To locate the mortise for the pin, put a piece of masking tape in the general vicinity of where the pin will strike. Then place a drop of machinist blue or correction ink on the tip of the bolt, retract it, close the door and extend the bolt, which will leave behind an accurate mark. Then drill the hole a hair toward the back of the

case. Last, use a small chisel to enlarge the hole just enough toward the front of the case until the pin fits snugly. The alternative to a flush bolt, for less formal applications, is an elbow catch. It is easier to mount because it attaches directly to the surface of the door and to a fixed shelf or bottom of the
case. No mortises are required. Just close the rear door, lay the

parts in place and drill pilot holes for the mounting screws. Always use a wooden stop with these.

HARDWARE
BALL AND BALL

(800) 257-3711
BRUSSO

(248) 674-8458

NORTON BRASSES

(800) 754-9127
LEE VALLEY TOOLS

Flush bolts require a mortise to

be cut on the inside face of the

Locate the hole for the bolt using correction fluid or ink. Paint

An elbow catch is easy to

door. Hog out most of the material with a router, then chisel to fit.
BULLET CATCHES

ink on the end of the bolt, then close the door and press the bolt against the case, leaving a mark.

mount. It is flush-mounted on the rear (left) door.

(800) 871-8158
LONDONDERRY BRASSES LTD.

(610) 593-6239

ROCKLER WOODWORKING (800) 279-4441 WHITECHAPEL LTD.

The only bullet catches worth using are made by Brusso. I generally use their smallest model. I mount the half with the spring-loaded bearing (bullet) to the case and the socket to the door. I prefer to mount the hardware to the bottom of the case so that drag marks aren't visible. The bullet is mounted first. Measure carefully and

be pressed into place. No glue

is required.

(800) 468-5534
WOODWORKER'S HARDWARE

(800) 383-0130 Before mounting the socket, cut a shallow slot in it with a hacksaw that fits the blade of a screwdriver. Then put a piece of

drill a hole into the case to the correct depth. Follow up with a narrower drill bit and counterbore the hole all the way through the case. That way you can use a drift to pound out the hardware and shim it up (or drill deeper), if necessary, to achieve a perfect fit. Without the counterbore, the bullet cannot be removed without damaging the surrounding wood. The bullet need only

tape on the bottom of the door and swing it to the closed position. The drag mark left by the bullet shows where the hole for the socket should be located. Mount the socket a little to the side of the bullet. This allows you to cam the door a little in or out by pivoting the socket with a screwdriver. These are a bit tricky to mount. Figure out your hole size on a piece of scrap, and take it slow.

Bullet catches require precision. Drill the hole for the bullet into the case at the precise depth, then extend the hole all the way through the case using a narrower bit.

The through-hole allows the bullet to be knocked out without damaging the case. After removal, the hole can be deepened or shimmed, if necessary, to adjust the fit of the bullet.

Locate the position for the socket. Tape the bottom corner of the door and swing it into the bullet, which will leave a mark.

The socket is mounted to the underside of each center door stile. By adjusting the angle of the socket, the door can be moved in or out about in. to correct a minor twist or hide an imperfect installation.

Keeping Plank Doors Flat

Five solutions, from standard to stylish

BY

C H R I S T I A N

B E C K S V O O R T

orking strictly with solid wood, I take frame-andpanel doors almost for granted. To me it's a no-brainer: Isolate the wood movement of a large panel in a small frame that tends to keep the panel flat. Historically, frameand-panel doors were a clear improvement over plank doors, and I haven't had much reason to return to the less stable form of construction. So when a student approached me recently with a project that involved two small slab doors, I had to stop and think. After mulling it over, I came up with the standard solutions for stabilizing these doors. I covered battens, dovetailed keys, bread-

board ends and hidden breadboard ends, all of which she rejected. She was looking for a clean look with cleats that were invisible. To get another point of view, we called over Andrew Carton, the head instructor for the 12-week intensive course at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Rockport, Maine. His idea was new to me and yielded cleats that were totally hidden. My student was finally satisfied. This article covers all five of the options we explored, including the invisible method.
Christian Becksvoort is a contributing editor.

raditionally, plank doors were kept flat with horizontal

Quick chamfer with a block plane. The

battens or cleats on the inside of in place with nails clinched over

the door. These In turn were held (or "killed," hence the phrase "dead as a doornail"). Some barn and storm doors are still constructed this way. After the mid1800s, screws often replaced the clinched nails. If the door was made of several boards, usually with tongues and grooves, a diagonal cleat was added to prevent sagging. A 2-in.thick cleat will keep a -in. door under control. The advantage of the simple board-and-batten method is that it works on any size door, from small cabinets up to large passages. The disadvantage is that

edges are relieved for decorative effect and

to downplay surface irregularities and seasonal gaps.

Fitting splines to grooves. The advantage of

spline-and-groove construction is that it requires

only one saw or router setup, but tongue-andgroove construction is also commonly used. To

allow seasonal movement, no glue is used.

Drilling for the battens. After the first hole has been drilled, an awl pins the batten in place. The author

uses a combination
drill/countersink to save a step and to

ensure the alignment

of the two operations.

the cleats look clunky and can interfere with shelves inside a cabinet. Because this door tends to look primitive, it was not much used on furniture after 1850.

Attaching the battens. Brass screws add

a decorative touch and

allow for some wood

movement.

tailed slots are cut horizontally across the

n elegant method of keeping doors

flat is to use dovetailed keys. Dove-

The major advantages of dovetailed

keys are that they look clean and are flush

inside top and bottom of the door, roughly two-thirds of the door's thickness. Matching dovetailed keys are then slid into the slots and attached in the middle. The slots can be cut with a backsaw and a router plane. An easier method is to use a router and fence.
One way to rout the dovetailed slots. There is enough width simply to run the workpiece along the fence. Beware of the cutter emerging from the front of the piece.

with the inside of the door. Dovetailed keys are best suited for small doors. A full-sized kitchen cabinet door, made of a single slab of cherry, for example, will move in. sea-

sonally. A gap that big is unacceptable. Also, these keys are not thick enough to stabilize anything but a small or narrow slab. Passage doors are out of the question.

The author also cuts the keys on the router table. A thin strip is left above the key to ride against the fence. An auxiliary fence protects the rip fence from the bit.

The author

sands the keys flush. A belt

sander requires
some skill but
results.

produces quick
Trim the key until it's snug. The excess left above the key will be removed later.

One nail holds

the key in

place while allowing seasonal changes. Leave the keys a

bit long, and

then trim them flush.

hink breadboard ends, and table-

tops immediately come to mind. However, this technique of keeping tabletops and cutting boards flat also works on doors. By cutting a long tenon or a series of individual tenons at the top and bottom of the door and then fitting breadboard ends, a plank door can be kept relatively flat. A single pin will hold the end in place and allow the plank to move. I've seen this procedure used on a
THE "SPEED TENON"

variety of furniture styles. One example is the folding lid on a Queen Anne or Chippendale slant-top desk. The Shakers utilized it on small or narrow slab doors. Like most of these stabilizing methods, breadboard ends work best on smaller doors. On wider surfaces, the amount of wood movement will be visually accentuated by the difference in width between the slab and the cross-grain ends.

This method works great for breadboard ends. After running the end of the plank along the rip fence to cut the tenon shoulders, run the plank into the side of the blade to create the cheeks. The rip

fence now acts as a stop. The ends of the tenon are cut the same
way, but the workpiece is held against the miter gauge for additional support and accuracy.

After cutting the long mortis-

es in the breadboard ends, trim the tenons to fit. A shoulder plane smooths and pares the cheeks.

Clamp the ends in place and drill for the pin. Each end is pinned in the center to secure

it while allowing for seasonal movement.

use hidden breadboard ends. By altering the construction of these end cleats, they can be made to disappear on both the inside and outside of the door. The technique is actually simpler than the visible breadboard method. Grooves are cut in both the top and bottom edges of the door. The grooves ought to be one-half the thickness of the door, and two to four times the door thickness in their depth. Cleats (or ribs, if you will) are cut to fit the grooves, dropped in place and then anchored in the middle. To make sure that the cleats stay tight at both ends, they should be made with slightly concave bottoms.

twist on the traditional method is to

Clamps are used to pull the curved surfaces down against the bottoms of the grooves, and then the cleats are glued or pinned in place.
Even though this technique is not visible from either the inside or outside, the

gant solid door with no sign of any stabilizing cleats. Andrew Garton solved this problem with an ingenious modification of the hidden breadboard end technique: Take the partially hidden cleats and move them completely in-

he student's cabinet design called for an ele-

cleats can still be seen along the top, bottom and edges. This was not good enough for my student. She wanted nothing less than perfection.

side the plank. The doors for the student's project

were to be small, in. by 7 in. by 10 in. We thought of two ways to create the voids for the hidden cleats: One employs a router; the other a tablesaw.
In the first procedure, the door

starts about in. thicker than final size, to allow for saw kerfs and planing and sanding. A skin is resawn off one
Cutting the grooves. An auxiliary fence is
Cut the cleats to fit the grooves, then plane

taller and gives additional support.

their bottom edges slightly concave. Later,

when they are pulled down into their grooves,

side. The bandsaw marks are removed from both pieces by sanding or planing. Then, stopped slots are routed about in. from

the cleats will make firm contact at both ends.

Clamp down the cleats into their Finishing up. Insert the pins, take off the grooves, and drill for their retaining pins. clamp and plane the cleats flush with the ends A contrasting wood is used here for the pins, and edges of the plank. but the pins could be disguised by choosing the same wood used in the door.

the top and bottom of the thick piece. The slots are in. to in. wide, extend almost to the edges of the door and leave only about in. of material at the bottom. Wood cleats are fitted to the
slots but left in. short to allow the

A student's quest

for perfection. Laura Smith, a student at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Rockport, Maine, got the stable but seamless plank doors she needed
for this cabinet.

door to move seasonally. A spot of glue centers each cleat in its slot. Finally, the skin is glued back on. Problem solved, we thought. But the student had another curve to throw us: She wanted book-matched doors. So we did some more mulling and suggested resawing both doors out of one thick plankthe first door,
a -in.-thick skin and the second door-

Saw off a skin and rout a blind, stopped

slot into each end of the door, stopping

short of the edges and leaving material at the bottom. in. of

then gluing it back together in the

same stack after the cleats were in place in both doors. When dry, the piece was resawn through the center of the -in. skin and planed and smoothed to final thickness, yielding two book-matched doors with interior, invisible cleats. While we were at it, we came up with an alternative method for creating
TABLESAW METHOD

the hidden voids in the doors, one

that doesn't require blind, stopped

router cuts. A skin can be removed

from both sides of the door using a

bandsaw, and the core can be cut up on a tablesaw to create the slots. The door should start out about in. wider and longer to allow for saw kerfs and smoothing. The core is cut up and reglued to yield -in. voids near the top and bottom. Next, one of the skins is
Resaw a skin off each side. Then cut up the core and throw away two of the cutouts to yield two voids. Also, make the two cleats.
Apply glue and tape the core in place. A wide vise acts as a clamp. Sand or plane the glued-up core and the cleats flat before the next step.

reattached to its side of the door. When dry, the strips are glued into the voids. Plan ahead and plane the strips at the same time you plane the cores. Finally, the last face of the door is glued on.
These "crypto-cleat" methods de-

mand extra work. However, they just might satisfy a woodworker who is
seeking perfection.
After gluing one skin back on, add the cleats. Trim each cleat to a tight fit but short on the ends. A spot of glue will lock it in place and allow for seasonal wood movement.

Glue on the last skin and trim the door. When gluing on the skin, use clamping cauls to ensure

even pressure.

Frame-and-Panel Doors
Five steps to building a door that will last for generations
B Y L O N N I E B I R D

DETAIL OF FRAME-AND-PANEL JOINERY

Raised panel Stile Mortise

2 in.

Tenon, 3 8 in. thick

Groove for panel Rail

Mortise

5 7

8 in.
1

8 in.

16-in. gap

4 in.

heres probably no design element with broader appeal than the frame-and-panel. Its a traditional favorite for doors, such as on this heirloom spice box (above), and for wall paneling and case work. And for good reasonthe frame-and-panel covers a broad expanse with only a negligible amount of seasonal wood movement. As the panel expands and contracts, it floats within the confines of the rail-and-stile frame, which helps keep the panel flat. Frame-and-panel doors are relatively easy to construct, but it can be tricky to get the proportions right. A door with the wrong proportions can ruin a piece of furniture. The door must be proportionate to the entire piece; the frame-and-panel parts must be proportionate to each other; and the stiles and rails must be proFINE WOODWORKING

portionate to the door as well as to each other. Sometimes, though, I make the bottom rail slightly wider to give it more visual weight. To determine the correct proportions quickly, I begin with a drawing that relies on the golden rectangle, in which the ratio of length to width is 1 to 1.618 (see A Guide to Good Design on pp. 48-51). But I make the final judgment with my eyes. Although flat panels work well, I prefer a raised-panel door, which has beveled edges and a raised appearance in the center. This design catches light and creates an interesting shadowline.

Lonnie Bird runs a woodworking school in Dandridge, Tenn. You can see his course offerings at www.lonniebird.com.
Photos: Karen Wales; drawings: Bob La Pointe

32

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2004

MAKE RAILS AND STILES FIRST

LAY OUT THE MORTISES A PAIR AT A TIME

Tandem layout. By clamping the stiles together, you can lay out joinery faster and more accurately. When scribing mortise marks, use a marking gauge with a chiseled point to define the sides of a mortise accurately.

When making a frame-and-panel door, I start with the rails

and stiles. Straight-grain stock provides strength and resists warping. The rails are dimensioned to size; the stiles are milled to the correct thickness and width but are left long for cleaner assembly. Leaving ears (extra length) on the stiles makes it easier to dry-fit the piece because you can use a mallet to put it together and tap it apart without denting the finished frame. After glue-up, the ears can be trimmed off on the tablesaw. At this stage, mark all of the faces of the parts and the height of the door, then work your way inward to locate the mortises. Next, use a marking gauge to mark the mortise widths and then mark the tenon shoulders on the rails. A mortise-and-tenon joint will hold when dry-assembled. Once glued up and secured with a wood pin, the joint will last for years. When cutting mortise-andtenons, I find it easier to cut the mortise first, then fit the tenon to its mate. Simply drill a row of holes and square the sides with a chisel. Its most important that the walls of your mortise be square to the adjacent sides and parallel to the opposing walls.

Steady the work. Clamp a makeshift fence to the drill-press table when boring out mortises, to register the stock and keep the bit from rotating the work. To prevent the bit from wandering, leave small spaces between the holes.

Clean out the mortise. With the stile clamped on edge, use the flat side of the chisel to chop out most of the mortise walls.

Pare the walls. The walls of each mortise must be square to their adjacent faces to ensure a good fit.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2004

33

C U T T E N O N S O N T H E TA B L E S AW

R O U T G R O O V E S T O H O L D T H E PA N E L

Use the tablesaws fence as a stop. Install a 34-in. dado set and adjust it to a cutting depth of 14 in. Use a miter gauge to make two or three crosscuts, until the end of the tenon rides against the fence.
Tablesaw fence

Cut stopped grooves on the stiles. Hold the end of the stile firmly against the fence, and pivot the workpiece into the rotating bit.

Rail 1 12 in.

Keep the front face of the stile up. The panel groove is offset from the center, so be sure to keep all parts properly oriented.
1

4 in.

Dado set

Use caution when cutting shoulders. If the shoulder is deep, lower the dado blades and begin with shallow passes before making full-height cuts using the miter gauge.

Fence
5

16 in.

4-in. groove cutter

Front face of stile Mortise

4 in.

As with the mortise, there are several methods for sawing the
tenon. The tablesaw with a dado set is a good option. You also can cut surprisingly accurate tenons with a well-tuned bandsaw. A backsaw is a great choice, too. Like the mortises, the tenon faces also must be square and parallel. That is less of a concern when using the tablesaw, but be careful about dado adjustment. By raising the dado blades just a bit too high, you can overcut the tenons easily, leaving them too thin to fit well. To avoid this, err on the waste side of the layout mark and trim the face of the tenon with a shoulder plane to achieve a friction fit with the mortise.

Once the joints have been cut, the next step is to cut a groove
in the stiles and rails to accept the panel. Choose a bit that will cut standard 14-in. grooves. Set the cutter to a height that is slightly offset from the center to accommodate the raised panel. Adjust the fence to cut a groove about 516 in. deep to allow for expansion of the panel. The grooves in the rails are cut all the way along the inside edges. The grooves in the stiles are stopped at the mortises. To cut a groove in a stile, pivot it into the cutter where the mortise has been cut. Rout along the inside edge and conclude at the opposite mortise.

34

FINE WOODWORKING

M I L L T H E R A I S E D PA N E L

ASSEMBLE THE DOOR

Use a panel-raising bit to rout the panel. Proceed slowly to avoid tearout, especially when cutting end grain.
3

FIRST PASS
Cutter

4 in.

Depth of final pass

Panel

FINAL PASS
1 14 in. Bearing guide

With the frame still dry-assembled and clamped, measure the

distance between the frame members and add 12 in.; this will leave about 116 in. on all sides to allow for panel expansion. To prevent rattling, the panel should be snug but not too tight in the frame. When selecting stock for the panel, I always use one wide board. The door panel is an eye-catching area, and glued-up stock is just too distracting. To find the most attractive area on the figured plank, position the dry-assembled frame on the stock and use it as a window to get a perfect picture of how the panel will appear within the frame. The next step is to mill the panel and bevel the edges (see the photo and drawings above). Set the fence to make a 34-in. cut using a panel-raising bit. When using a router table, two or three passes are needed to get the correct depth without tearout. Once the shallow cuts have been made, the router-table fence can be moved back to expose 114 in. of the panel bit. It will cut a panel that appears 1 in. wide with a 14-in. lip (edge) that rides in the groove.

Dry-fit it. Fit one rail and stile first, then put the panel in place (above) and fit the remaining rail and stile. This order lowers the risk of tearing out the panel corners. Next, make sure the frame is square. With a square on the flat side of the panel, simply tap the long end of a stile (left). Once the glue has set, the stile ends can be trimmed flush with the rails.

Once the panel has been made, the door is ready for assembly.
Its always a good idea to perform a dry run, which gives you an opportunity to check the final fit and make adjustments before the glue is applied. During final assembly, make certain that you clamp the door together on a flat surface; otherwise, you may inadvertently glue a twist into the door. Apply glue sparingly to the mortise walls and to the faces of the tenons. If the joints fit well, they will not require much glue. Youll need to work neatly, or the excess can squeeze out and glue the panel in place. Once the glue has dried, carefully trim the door and fit it to the opening in your case work.
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Graceful Glass Doors

Delicate muntins require exacting machine work and handwork, but they create doors of elegant proportions
B Y S T E V E L A T T A

pair of properly executed glass doors adds sophistication to a bookcase, a breakfront or a caseon-chest. The doors on this walnut bookcase that I made for my wife are similar to ones I saw several years ago on an English antique. Most glass doors today are built using cope-and-stick knife sets to shape the muntinsnot so with these doors. Cope-and-stick sets give rise to a heavier, bulky gridwork that is inappropriate for the lighter and more formal look I prefer in my work. My process involves precise machine work and handwork, but for the end result, the extra effort is well worth it.

Joinery details make a sturdy frame

The joinery for a glass-door frame is standard mortise-and-tenon fare, but there are a few important details to note. Choose straight-grained stock because of its strength and stability. Leave it oversize for several days, and then bring it down to final dimension after it has stabilized. The mortises cut into the stiles and the matching tenons on the ends of the rails are offset from the centerline of the stock thickness. The front cheeks align with the back edge of the small roundover bead that is shaped along the inside edges of the door frame. That bead holds the panes of glass in place. Also, with this design, one other detail stands out: Each of the delicate muntins is made from two separate pieces of wooda face piece shaped with a small bead that fits over a lattice grid.

Mill and mold the door frame

I make doors slightly oversize and then fit them to their openings. With these doors, the stiles and rails are 78 in. thick by slightly more than 218 in. wide. On the inside edge of each piece, cut a 18-in. radius bead (I use

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FINE WOODWORKING

Photos: William Duckworth

D E TA I L S F O R E L E G A N T G L A S S D O O R S
This design combines the delicate two-part muntins with strong, traditionally joined frames to make elegant, sturdy doors.

DOOR-FRAME JOINERY
1

2 in.

Align the horizontal muntins with the bookshelves behind the doors.

2 18 in. 1 12 in.

1 12 in. Bead is mitered at the corners.

1

8 in.

Top of the tenon is flush with the rabbet.

8 in.

8 in.

4 in.

Rabbet for glass

WHERE MUNTINS MEET THE DOOR FRAME

Beaded face overlaps the top edge of the lattice.
11

Door stile

16 in.

Lattice grid

2 in. Mortise

WHERE MUNTINS INTERSECT

Miter
3

8 in. Face Door stile

16 in.

Half lap

Groove, 8 in. wide by 116 in. deep

9

16 in.

Lattice Gap here will be concealed by the face.

1

8 in.

8 in.

The lattice grid, joined with half laps, is glued together as the door is assembled.

Each beaded face is grooved on the underside, custom fitted and glued in place.

8 in.

Joint must be tight.

SECTION VIEW

SIDE VIEW

Drawings: Vince Babak

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CUT SMALL MORTISES FOR L AT T I C E G R I D

Small mortises require machine work and handwork. The 18-in. by 38-in. by 12-in. deep mortises for the lattice grids are drilled out with a brad-point bit in a drill press and cleaned out by hand with chisels.

lengths longer than what youll need, and always make extras. Start with a piece of stock about 5 in. wide and 38 in. thick. Joint an edge, then rout the beaded shape along that edge (I use an Amana #51540 bullnose bit with a 564-in. radius to shape the fully half-round bead on the edge faces). Make sure the bead is centered. After shaping the edge, rip it to thickness (mine were just shy of 316 in.), using a splitter and a good-size push stick to support the stock as you cut it. Repeat that processjoint, shape, rip until all of the beaded face blanks are done. Store these muntin faces on a scrap of plywood and tack them down with a string or a rubber band to prevent them from twisting and cupping. One thing Id like to stress here is the need for accurately machined pieces. Use a narrow router table with a short fence to accommodate slight deviations in stock thickness or flatness.

Make the lattice grid delicate and strong

an Amana #49496 roundover bit), leaving a heavy 116-in. step at the front edge. After routing the roundover, calculate the height of the back rabbet and cut it on a shaper or a router table with a fence. The rabbet should be the same depth as the roundover (mine is 18 in.). In height, it should leave enough of a bead and flat so that the entire muntin face dies into the flat area and does not have to be coped to the radiused section. To eliminate tearout when cutting the rabbet, make a light pass first and follow that with a full-depth pass. After the roundover and rabbet have been machined, finish executing the door joinerymortise-and-tenon with a mitered roundover where the stile and rail join, which some people call a jack miterand then dry-fit the door. The stock thickness of the lattice grid is sized to fit a standard rip-blade kerfone created by a sawtooth that is square in profile. Rip a shallow groove about 18 in. deep in a piece of scrap. This scrap will serve as a test sample for milling the lattice pieces to thickness. Start with a piece of material about 6 in. wide that is a couple of inches longer than your longest frame member, and plane it down to 58 in. thick. This blank will be milled into strips that fit snugly into the groove on the scrap test sample. These strips can be generated a variety of ways. They can be ripped oversize and brought

Mold the bead on the muntin faces

After milling the stiles and rails for the door frame, mill the muntin face pieces to size and shape. At this stage, however, save the task of cutting the grooves in the backs of them until later. Mill the beaded faces in

M I L L T H E L AT T I C E G R I D
Half-lap joints for the lattice grid. With 18-in.thick stock, you can cut half-lap joints easily. Use a miter gauge to make one pass through each piece.

Cutting tenons on the ends of the latticegrid stock. Use the tablesaw fence as a stop block and support the thin lattice with a scrap of wood screwed to the miter gauge. Make a first pass to define the shoulder and then drag the stock across the sawblade to cut the tenons.

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FINE WOODWORKING

ASSEMBLE THE DOOR I N S TAG E S

1
Glue-ups can be stressful, especially with so many delicate pieces of wood going together at the same time. Latta recommends breaking down the process into manageable stages. 1. Assemble the lattice grid with a spot of glue at each half-lap joint, and then glue the vertical lattice piece into the top and bottom door rails. 2. Fit the rails and the horizontal lattice pieces into the first stile. 3. Add the second stile and clamp the door assembly together.

to thickness with a wide-belt sander, a drum sander or a thickness planer. Or you can just rip the lattice pieces to thickness on the tablesaw, using a zero-clearance insert, a splitter, and a push stick. Although the resulting sawmarks are not desirable, they wont be seen because the glazing compound that holds the glass in place will cover them. Once youve milled the latticegrid pieces, bundle them up and set them aside. I keep mine wrapped in plastic to prevent them from twisting out of shape. Cut mortises for the lattice gridTo lay out the mortises for the lattice grid in the dry-fitted door frame, measure the rabbetto-rabbet dimension between stiles and rails to get the correct locations. I use a 1 8-in. brad-point bit mounted in the drill press to remove most of the waste, then I clean up the mortises with a chisel. Scoring a line with a knife down the center of the mortise layout helps the small brad-point bit stay on track better along the center of the mortise. Cut the mortises about 12 in. deep with one end flush against the back edge of the small roundover bead that is shaped along the inside edges of the door

2
frames and the other end about 18 in. in from the back of the doors. When youve finished cutting all of the mortises for the lattice grid, you can cut the lattice pieces to length and shape the tenons on the ends. Notch ends to make tenonsWhen calculating the exact length of the lattice-grid pieces, figure a 716-in.-long tenon on each end. This will leave a pocket at the bottom of the mortise for excess glue or debris. You need to cut rabbeted shoulders on both the top and bottom edges to form tenons. The bottom (or back) edge is the most important because it forms a visible seam where it joins the door frames. The

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M I L L T H E M U N T I N FAC E S

Theres no room for slop when shaping and milling these small muntin faces. Its an exacting process. Joint, rout and rip. Shape the muntin faces two at a time, working from both edges of a board. Joint each edge flat, rout the beaded shape, and then rip off each side on the tablesaw, using a large paddle-style push stick to keep the stock flat on the saw table. Small pieces require extra care. To mill a 116-in.-deep groove into the delicate muntin, hold down each piece from above and push it tightly to the fence.

upper (or front) rabbet does not have to fit tightly to the roundover bead because that seam will be covered by the muntin faces. To cut the shoulders on the lattice-grid members, use a miter gauge with an auxiliary fence for support. You can use the main fence of the tablesaw as an indexed stop for the length of each tenon cut. Set a combination blade about 18 in. high, make a shoulder cut, and then drag the stock across the blade to cut the rest of the tenon shoulder. Once the proper tenon length has been established, cut all of the horizontal lattice pieces, and then repeat the process with the vertical pieces. Reset the fence to

cut the upper rabbet on all of the latticegrid pieceshorizontal and verticalso that you end up with a tenon width that matches the width of the mortise. Half laps stiffen the gridThe latticegrid pieces must be joined with standard half-lap joints. This is best done on the tablesaw with a rip blade and an L-shaped auxiliary fence mounted to the miter gauge. The fence eliminates tearout and helps locate each notch. Cut a notch halfway through the horizontal frame members in the exact middle of each piece. Hold the vertical members against the stiles and

transfer the locations of the mortises onto those pieces. Cut the notches to fit. The vertical and horizontal members should fit together at 90. After all of the notching has been completed, dry-fit the door with the lattice grid in place to see whether it all fits.

Glue the door together before fitting the muntin faces

Glue up the door one section at a time. Havoc awaits fools who attempt to do it all at once. Start with the lattice grids, using yellow glue, and then glue the lattice-grid verticals into the top and bottom rails. After that, join each stile, one at a time. Make

F I T T H E M U N T I N FAC E S

Mark and cut each muntin face separately. With a 2-in.-long layout scrap as a marker, Latta uses a plane iron to score each muntin face in place on the door. Then he removes each piece to custom-cut it to length.

Shopmade setup for trimming small miters. A scrap of wood cut with 45 miters on both ends and screwed to a scrap of plywood serves as a guide for mitering the delicate muntin faces. A sharpened plane iron makes the cut.

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sure the door is flat and not twisted, using the same type of clamps throughout on a flat, level bench. Fit the muntin faces one at a time Using the rip blade again, cut a groove down the center of the back of each muntin face piece. Because these pieces are so small, use a large push block that will hold the whole piece tightly against the saw table and another scrap of wood that will keep it pushed against the fence. The groove should be a heavy 116 in. deep. Where muntin faces join, I use a plane iron or a wide chisel as a sort of guillotine to chop the mitered ends cleanly. To make a guillotine, screw a block of wood with a 45-angle cut on both ends to a small piece of plywood. This block will serve as the guide for the plane iron as you press it against the sides of the block. Youll need a layout piece to mark for all of the miter cuts. Cut a 2-in.-long scrap piece of muntin face stock. Leave one end square and make opposing 45 cuts on the other end. To begin facing the lattice grid, cut a piece of muntin a little bit longer than the first point of intersection, with one end square. Fit it over the lattice grid, being sure to butt the square end tightly to the top or bottom rail. Coming in from both sides, slide the square end of the layout piece up to the muntin face and transfer a mark with the plane iron. These points in-

dicate where the miters begin. Line up each mark to the edge of the guide block and, with a slicing motion, trim the miters to length with the iron. Check the fit by pressing the muntin face onto the frame and sliding the mitered face of the layout piece up to it. If the fit is good, cut and join each of the two side muntins that intersect that joint, and then continue with the next vertical piece. Work your way down the full grid of the door. As tedious as this process may sound, it actually goes quite quickly, providing your iron is sharp. Once all of the muntin faces have been fitted, take them off one at a time. Using a small glue syringe, put a light bead on the inside edges of each groove and press them in place over the lattice grid. Do this to all of the muntins, adding a small drop of glue where the pieces butt together. Any excess glue must be removed because it will interfere with installing the glass and cause blotches in the final finish. Once all of the muntin faces have been glued in place, and before installing the glass, fit the door to its opening and hang it on hinges. After that, sand and finish the doors before glazing them. Glass doors with this delicate gridwork are ageless and speak to a time when attention to detail meant a little more than it often does today.

Match the color of the putty to the finished wood

Doing the glazing isnt difficult with a little patience and practice. A talented glazier named John Rush gave me more than a few pointers. Start by tacking each pane in place with a few dabs of clear silicone along each lip. This keeps the glass from rattling as the door is opened and closed, and it works much better than traditional glazing points that would tend to split the thin latticegrid pieces. The glazing compound should be colored using universal tinting colors (UTCs) to match the finish on the wood. UTCs are used by painters and are Glass Glazing available at most compound paint stores. Use a drill with a mixing paddle to blend the colors into a can of regular glazing putty. If the mixture becomes too thin, add a little whitingalso available at paint storesto thicken it. Mix the glazing a few days ahead of time and set it aside. This allows it to thicken a bit, and as it dries you get a better idea of the final color. You dont need a dead match for the color; you just want it to be close and unobtrusive. To apply the putty, I use a shortened putty knife with one corner ground off, which helps me get neater results when trimming away the excess putty.

Steve Latta teaches cabinetmaking at Thaddeus Stevens School of Technology in Lancaster, Pa.

Eight miters for each intersection. Four muntin faces join together over each half-lap joint of the lattice grid.

Dont use too much glue. A syringe is ideal for applying glue to the small muntin face pieces. (One source is Lee Valley, 800-871-8158.) Any excess glue should be removed before it dries.

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Sliding Doors for Furniture

Build attractive doors that slide smoothly
B Y S E T H J A N O F S K Y
like to use sliding doors in my work. If they are appropriate for a cabinet Im making, Ill often choose them over hinged doors. Sliding doors can be either more or less sophisticated in their design and proportions, but making the tracks and fitting the doors are pretty straightforward. A well-made sliding door is a pleasure to use. When built properly, even a large door will slide almost effortlessly. Although it involves wood sliding on wood, a good door might as well be running on ball bearings. And, speaking for myself, I appreciate not having to go through the tedious process of carefully mortising for hinges and fitting and refitting to get the doors just right. Another convenient attribute of sliding doors is that they are not attached to the cabinet but can be lifted in and out of their tracks at any time. For practical reasons, however, sliding doors sometimes are inappropriate. Think about the ways the cabinet will be used. Sometimes its desirable to have all of the doors on a cabinet open at once, in which case hinged doors are a better choice. The proportion of the doors is another consideration. As a practical guideline, doors will slide well when their height is less than two and a half times their width. As with drawers, the longer the doors running surface relative to its height, the smoother the sliding action. Doors run much more smoothly when they do not actually rest on the bottom of the grooves in the lower track, but rather on a small ledge. This is achieved by

58

FINE WOODWORKING

Photo, this page: Seth Janofsky

adding a rabbet at the top and bottom of the door, leaving thick tongues at those locations, and then cutting the grooves to fit the tongues. I usually place this rabbet along the front edge of the door, though most Japanese cabinet doors have this ledge along the back. The tongue does not bottom out in the lower grooves, leaving a gap for crud to gather without derailing the door or scarring the wood.

Upper groove, 12 in. wide by 38 in. deep

ANATOMY OF A SMOOTH RIDE

For effortless action, a sliding door should ride on a narrow rabbet, as opposed to the full door thickness riding along the bottom of the grooves in the lower track. Try to prevent the upper and lower rabbets from cutting into the doors joinery. Because deep grooves cut into the cabinet top would compromise its strength and stability, the upper track is a separate piece.

Chamfer allows door to tilt into upper groove.

Start with the tracks

The first thing to note is that the grooves in the lower track can be quite shallow and still function well (in most furniture projects I make the grooves between 116 in. and 18 in. deep). But the grooves in the upper track need to be considerably deeper not only to prevent the door from falling out of the cabinet but also to allow the door to be lifted off the lower track for installation and removal. I usually make the upper grooves 38 in. to 1 2 in. deep. This allows for at least a full 1 4 in. of penetration in the grooves when the door is in place. If youve never made this kind of door before, it can be helpful to draw the doors and tracks full-size in cross section to be sure that the grooves in the tracks will be aligned and to imagine how the doors will work when being lifted in and out of the tracks. Generally, the shallow grooves of the lower track are cut into the cabinet bottom. Depending on your choice of cabinet joinery, this may require that you cut stopped

Door, 4 in. thick

Cabinet top Upper track

Cabinet bottom

Upper rabbet, 8 in. deep by 1 4 in. wide

3

Door slides on this narrow ledge.

Door is lifted into the upper track, then dropped into the lower track. Bottom rabbet, 1 16 in. deep by 1 4 in. wide

Lower groove, 12 in. wide by 18 in. deep, prevents the door from bottoming out.

C U T G R O O V E S F O R T H E T R AC K S W I T H A DA D O S E T

Cut grooves for the lower track. These shallow grooves can be cut directly into the cabinet bottom.

Cut grooves for the upper track. These are deeper than the lower ones and go in a separate piece so as not to weaken the cabinet top.

Install the upper track. Be sure that the grooves in the track are aligned with the corresponding grooves below.

Photos, except where noted: Asa Christiana; drawings: Chuck Lockhart

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2004

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RABBET THE DOORS AND TRIM THEM TO FIT

Rabbet the door to fit the grooves. The bottom and top rabbets are of different heights to match the corresponding grooves.

grooves, in which case the router is best. Make sure not to overshoot your mark. The ends of the grooves can be squared up even with the cabinet sides after assembly. If the joinery on your cabinet is such that the side overlaps the bottom, you have it easier: You can just run the grooves straight through the bottom. A dado set is excellent for this. The upper track is a separate piece A cabinet top above a set of sliding doors is by its nature a relatively long expanse of unsupported wood, even when there is a center divider behind the doors anchoring most of the top. Experience has taught me that the deeper upper grooves can destabilize the top. Ive seen extreme cases in which moisture changes and a bowed top allowed the door to fall out as it was slid to the center. Making the upper track separately and gluing it to the underside of the cabinet top is a more sound approach. That being said, in small cabinets or when the top is very thick, the upper track sometimes can be cut directly into the top, just as the lower track is cut into the bottom. Last, you need to plan the right amount of space between the track grooves, allowing for the fact that the doors are thicker than the grooves. The doors shouldnt need more than 116 in. of space between them, unless you are using the mortised-in type of pulls that protrude slightly from the door (see the bottom photo on the facing page).

Fit the door to the grooves. Plane the edges and the rabbets so that the door slides smoothly and the bottom rides on its rabbet, not on its lower edge.

Install the doors. After waxing the track grooves, lift the door into the upper groove, then let it drop into the corresponding lower groove.

Two options for doors

As with most doors, it is a good idea to set aside the wood for them and build the case first. Once you know the exact sizes of the opening and the grooves, you can build the sliding doors to fit. Sliding doors usually are of two types of construction: plywood or veneered doors with solid edging or frame-and-panel doors. Solid-slab doors are to be avoided because they are prone to warping with moisture changes. If a hinged door cups a bit when the humidity changes, it still will swing well enough; but if a sliding door cups, it stops in its tracks. So make sure all of the parts are square, straight, and stable before cutting joinery and assembling the doors. Hints for veneered doors and panels Although I often prefer the look of frameand-panel doors, sometimes plywood or

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FINE WOODWORKING

veneered doors are the best choice. The first thing to do is to edge the core with solid wood, making the edgings wide enough to allow the rabbets to be cut away when the doors are fitted to their tracks. Also, consider carefully which type of finger pull to use. For all veneered doors, but especially for sliding doors that ride in a snug track, make the front and back veneers of the same material and thickness. If you dont believe that different veneers can be a problem, try making a panel with a 116-in.-thick veneer of yew on one side and a 116-in.-thick veneer of Port Orford cedar on the other, as I once did, and then expose the panel to a change in humidity. Suffice it to say that a little warp can create big problems. Frame-and-panel doorsFrame-andpanel construction is a little more complicated, because in determining the size of the rails and stiles, you must take into account how much of the rails will disappear into the upper and lower tracks. This obviously will affect the appearance of the door. Also, when using the overall cabinet opening to figure the width of the door panels, its easy to forget that the center door stiles will overlap. The trick is in the initial figuring of the dimensions. After checking and rechecking the dimensions, I make the doors about 116 in. oversize so that I can trim and square them perfectly during final fitting. Any more trimming than that, and the proportions of the rails and stiles will be noticeably off in the finished door, and the center stiles wont line up accurately, one behind the other.

Two ways to make sliding-door pulls

Because sliding doors look best when the clearance between them is minimal, a handle or pull shouldnt protrude very far from the door. Janofsky favors a simple finger pull, cut in one of two ways.

OPTION 1 Cut directly into the frame

This method is the quickest but involves the most risk to the finished door.
Zero-clearance face clamped to router fence

Slot-cutting router bit spins counterclockwise.

Door pivots into the bit.

Pulls should be flush or nearly so

Frame-and-panel sliding doors dont need finger pulls because they can be opened and closed with light finger pressure on the edge of the door frame. But I think pulls are a nice visual accent and make doors look like, well, doors. So I typically use them (see the photos and drawing at right). I prefer the mortised-in pull, although it takes a bit more time to build. It gives me the opportunity to add a nicely harmonizing wood to the cabinet design.
Pivot the door into the bit. The cutting force will want to send the door to the right, so clamp a block on the fence to anchor that end of the door. Test the setup on scrap before risking a finished door.

Stop block controls the action.

Router fence

OPTION 2 Mortised into the frame

Seth Janofsky is a furniture maker and photographer in San Francisco.

This method is more time-consuming but less risky because the pull is cut into a separate piece of wood, which in turn is mortised into the door frame. Tip: Cut the notch into a wider board, and then rip away and crosscut the desired block.

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With Ease
Four-step process uses the jointer and tablesaw to guarantee a perfect fit
B Y J . S P E E T J E N S

Install Inset Doors

ver the years Ive had to hang hundreds of inset cabinet doors. In that time, I have refined an efficient process for fitting them accurately to their openings. The method works for most styles of furniture and cabinetry. As with any door fitting, the process is easiest if the door and the opening are reasonably square and free of twist to start with. However, my process makes it easy to compensate for typical variances in squarenessgenerally gaps less than 1 8 in. What is different about this trimming and fitting process is that it relies on the jointer and tablesaw, as opposed to handplanes, to make all of the necessary cuts, whether straight or slightly angled. To reduce the amount of trimming, I build doors just a hair (no

more than 1 32 in.) larger than the case opening. The ease and accuracy of the fitting process come with making light trim cuts in a specific sequence, and using simple but precise shims to check your progress and mark the next cut. I make furniture for a living, and this process lets me fit a typical door in about 15 minutes, leaving a thin, uniform gap all aroundthe calling card of a skilled craftsman.

Choose shims and prepare the case and door

The fitting process starts with an inspection of the hinges. When theyre closed, butt hinges have a gap between the leaves, which creates the gap on the hinge side of the door after the leaves have been mortised in flush to the edge of the door and the case. To
Photos: Marcia Ryan

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Steps to a perfect fit

When fitting an inset door in a cabinet, Speetjens starts with the bottom edge and the hinge side, making light, tapered cuts on each to avoid overcutting any one edge. Then he proceeds with the top edge, and finally trims the latch side once before and once after setting the hinges.

CUT THE BOTTOM

Set the door in the opening and check the fit at the hinge side. If there is a gap at the top or bottom corner, make a tapered cut along the bottom edge to remove most but not all of the gap.

TRIM THE HIN GE SIDE

Check the fit at the hinge side again and remove any remaining gap by making a tapered cut on the jointer.

FIT THE TOP NEXT

Place the door on shims to check the top edge, and trim it on the tablesaw using the crosscutting sled. This cut determines the gap along both the top and bottom edges.

create a uniform gap along all four sides of the door, you must use shim stock that matches the hinge gap. Ive found that a single thickness of laminate will yield a gap around the door that is between 1 32 in. and 1 16 in. thick, matching the gap in most high-quality extruded brass hinges. I use high-pressure Formica chips, but any hard shim stock will do. You also will need thinner shim stock, such as veneer. After assembling the door, letter its top hinge-side corner and place a corresponding mark on the inside edge of the opening to keep track of the doors proper orientation throughout the process. For inset doors to hang nicely in their openings, the case needs to sit in a plumb and level position. Level the case by setting it on a flat surface such as
Drawings: Don Mannes

FIT THE L ATC H SIDE

Check the fit of the last edge and trim it just short of the layout marks before hanging the door. Once the door is hung, verify the marks and make the final trim cut.

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Trim the bottom

The first step in the process is to measure the gap along the hinge side and eliminate some of it by trimming the bottom edge of the door.

1. Make light trim cuts as necessary. The door should go at least partially into the opening. Then push the door against the hinge side.

a benchtop or a tablesaw top, or, for a larger case, by sliding wedges under the appropriate corners as it sits on the shop floor. Now hold the door up to the opening and assess the general fit. If you sized the parts properly, the door should be just a bit longer or wider than the opening. However, the door must be placed at least partially into the opening for this fitting process to work. So make light trim cuts until the length and width of the door just slip into the opening. If the case is a bit out of square, the door may not fit entirely into the opening, but you will take care of that in the next step. Throughout the process, I make all cuts across the grain using a crosscutting sled on the tablesaw; for light cuts along the grain I use a jointer.

Gap at hinge side of door (exaggerated for clarity)

Start the fitting process at one corner

The first area of the door to be fit to the case is the entire corner formed by the hinge side and the bottom edge. Press the door as far as it will go into the opening, checking the fit along the hinge side. Try to keep the bottom of the door flat against the bottom of the opening. If an uneven gap of 1 32 in. or greater exists on the hinge side, youll need to correct for some of that gap by making a light, tapered trim cut on the bottom edge of the door using the crosscutting sled on the tablesaw. This cut

Remove a portion of the gap on the hinge side by making a tapered cut along the bottom of the door.

2. Measure the gap and mark the corner. With a few thin shims, measure the thickness of the gap on the hinge side of the door. Then mark the corner of the bottom edge to be tapered.

3. Trim the door bottom using a tablesaw crosscutting sled. To make the precise, tapered cut, place shims against the fence equal in thickness to half or more of the hinge-side gap.

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Finish fitting the hinge side

After trimming the bottom edge, Speetjens removes the uneven gap left along the hinge side using a simple tapering technique on the jointer.

Trim the opposite corner.

Check the gap and mark the cut. Reposition the door against the hinge side. In this case, the gap is at the bottom (above left), so the tapered cut is marked at the top corner (above right). Trust your eye for layout.
Gap

PRECISE TAPERS ON THE JOINTER

This technique works well for light, tapered cuts along the grain. Use a combination of normal cuts and tapered cuts to sneak up on the layout marks.

also might help the door slip all the way into the opening, if it wont do so already. It is critical that you dont trim too much off the bottom edge: Aim for eliminating only one-half to two-thirds of the gap. Later youll eliminate the remainder by trimming the hinge side of the door, thereby not taking too much off any one edge. When measuring the thickness of the gap, use a stack of thin veneer shims. The advantage of using multiple shims is that you can take a few away when setting up the crosscutting sled to make an incremental cut that removes just a fraction of the actual gap. While the door is still in the opening, mark the bottom edge of the door at the point of the maximum depth of the taper. Then place a few of the veneer shims between the door and the back fence of the sled to set up the cut. With the tablesaw turned off, slide the sled forward and backward to check the position of the sawcut. I prefer to keep the door faceup on the crosscutting sled so that any blowout is on the back of the door. Afterward, clean up the sawmarks along the bottom edge of the door using a sanding block or a block plane. To make the sanding block easier to balance on the edgeand less prone to rounding the edgethe width of the block should be no more than 14 in. greater than the thickness of the door. When one side of the case is bowed slightly, Ive found that a cabinet scraper, such as a

Drop the door onto the outfeed table.

1 2

in.

Set the infeed table for the lightest possible cut.

Starting point. With the jointer running, place the corner of the door to be trimmed onto the infeed table. Lower the opposite corner with about 1 2 in. overlapping the outfeed table.

Making the cut. Push the door through as you would for an ordinary cut. If there is enough material left, make a normal pass to clean up the edge.

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Use shims to fit the top edge

Two hinge-gap shims are set underneath the door, and a third is used to mark the top edge for trimming.

Stanley No. 80, works well for removing material along just a segment of an edge of the door. It takes some practice, though. Finish by trimming the hinge side of the door The door should slide more freely into the opening now. Again, slide the door along its bottom edge and against the hinge side. If the gap was very uneven earlier, there still may not be enough lateral space for the door to sit flat on its bottom edge. In that case, make straight, light jointer cuts on the hinge side of the door until it can rotate slightly in the opening and sit flat. Now check the fit along the hinge side. You probably still will have an uneven gap, so eyeball the amount of material to be removed and lay out the cut by making a pencil mark at the maximum depth of the taper. If the gap is at the top end of the hinge side, you will need to trim an equal amount off the bottom end. If the gap is at the bottom end, trim conversely. One of the keys to this fitting process is using the jointer to make tapered cuts along the grain. Set the jointer for as light a cut as possible, then determine the corner of the door that does not need any material removed. Place that corner about 1 2 in. onto the outfeed table and feed the door through the jointer normally. Light cuts will reduce the chance for tearout, and they also will leave smaller divots where the door was placed onto the cutterhead. To further reduce tearout when going against the grain, reduce the feed rate. The door now should fit into the opening along both the bottom edge and the hinge side. If enough material is left, make a light, normal pass on the jointer to clean up the slight divot. Sand or plane away any tool marks before moving on to the next step.

1. Place the door on shims. With one shim at each bottom corner, push the door inward about 1 8 in. to prepare for the next step. The door probably will balance in this position.

Trim the top edge of the door

For this step youll need the hinge-gap shims I described earlier. Place one at each end of the bottom

HI N G E S D E T E R M I N E TH E S H I M T H I C K N E S S

Speetjens uses shims that match the gap between the hinge leaves to create gaps of even thickness around all four sides of the door.

2. Mark the gap at the top. Hold a shim against the top of the case opening and mark the trim line at each top corner of the door.

3. After trimming on the tablesaw, return the door to the opening. Dont place any shims underneath the door. To check both the top and bottom gaps at once, slide two shims in the gap along the top edge.

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of the door opening. Position the door on the shims, and set it 18 in. back from the front of the Do most of the fitting of the final edge before setting the hinges, but save some material case with the hinge side of the for small adjustments afterward. door tight against the case. Most doors will balance in this position. If the door wont go into the opening with the bottom shims in place, use the crosscutting sled on the tablesaw to make very light trim cuts along the top edge until it will. With the door in position in the opening, place another shim against the underside of the top of the opening and mark the thickness of the shim at each corner of the door. Use the crosscutting sled to trim to the marks. 2. Hang the door before final trimming. 1. Mark the latch side for trimming. Press the door Remove the shims and place Work carefully to be sure each hinge leaf is against the hinge side, setting it inside the case slightly. the door in the opening in the set exactly flush with the surface. Use two shims to lay out the opposite side. Trim this edge same plane that it will hang. on the jointer to within 1 32 in. of the marks to allow for Using two shims that equal the discrepancies that may occur when hanging the door. desired gaps at the top and bottom edges, check the gap along the top of the door. The shims should slide smoothly. If necessary, make additional adjustments to the top edge of the door. Again, sand or plane the top edge to remove sawmarks.

Fit the latch side while hanging the door

Trim the latch side of the door

Before you hang the door on its hinges, the final side has to be fitted. Place the door in the opening with the front surface about 1 8 in. back from the front of the case. Slide the door to the hinge side and place two shims against the latch side of the case. Mark their thickness at the top and bottom of the latch side of the door, then use any combination of straight and angled cuts on the jointer to trim to within 1 32 in. of the marks. I like to wait until after I hang the door on its hinges before I trim the last 132 in. off the latch side. This extra material affords some leeway for any variances that may occur when setting the hinges. After the door has been hung, verify the gaps with a shim above and below each hinge. If youre not satisfied with the setting of the hinges, deepen or add a veneer shim to one or more of the hinge mortises as needed (for more on installing butt hinges, see FWW #159, pp. 52-57). If the hinges dont need adjustment, use a shim to verify that your marks on the latch side are still accurate, and trim to the marks on the jointer. Then clean up the edge by sanding or planing the tool marks. Remember, to ensure the success of this process, work in a methodical fashion, trimming excess material from each edge of the door in small increments.
J. Speetjens makes furniture and cabinetry in Greensboro, N.C.
3. One last step. After the door has been hung, slide a shim along the latch side to recheck your layout marks. Make the final trimming cuts on the jointer.
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Frame-and-Panel

Doors Made Easy

Cope-and-stick router bits are quick but tricky. Heres how to get perfect results
B Y M I C H A E L P E K O V I C H
Photos, this page: Michael Pekovich; facing page: John Tetreault

COPYRIGHT 2007 by The Taunton Press, Inc. Copying and distribution of this article is not permitted.

his past summer, during the remodeling of my kitchen, I was faced with the task of making 31 cabinet doors. I needed speed and simplicity, so I broke out my router table and a set of cope-andstick router bits. These bit combinations allow you to rout door frames quickly, in two steps. The first bit routs a profile and panel groove on the inside edge of all the frame parts. The second bit is a mirror image of the first, routing a coped profile and a stub tenon on the ends of the frame rails. What you create is not a traditional mortise-andtenon joint. But done right, it gives you a cabinet door thats just as strong. The key is to use a flat panel of plywood or medium-density fiberboard (MDF) thats glued in place not a raised panel, which is designed to float. All in all, I was able to build all 31 doors in the course of a weekend, from milling lumber to finish sanding. Different types of cope-and-stick bits are available, with an array of profiles from simple thumbnails to more ornate ogees (see sidebar, right.) In general, these bits are designed for 34-in.-thick doors, but there are cope-and-stick bits available for stock 1 2 in. or thinner.

Bit types
TWO-BIT SET

Router bits for door frames are referred to in woodworking catalogs as cope and stick or rail and stile bits. Their function is to rout a profile and a panel groove on the inside edge of the frame parts and to cope the ends of the rails to fit that profiled edge. The bit style I use consists of a pair of matched bits (above). Another style of bit that is available is a stacked bit (left), in which the cutters necessary for each profile are included on a single bit. The stacked style does away with bit changing and may be more convenient for occasional use, but the twobit style can be used with two dedicated routers for a better production setup. Both styles range from $80 to $150. A less-expensive alternative is a reversible bit, with cutters that are reconfigured on a shaft for each cut. These STACKED SINGLE BIT sell for $80 to $100, but I dont think the savings is worth the inconvenience.

Start with straight, square stock

I began by milling the door-frame stock. I prefer quartersawn or rift-sawn boards because the tight, straight grain is both good-looking and stable. Its important that the stock be straight and square. Any slight bow or twist will make fitting the door a nightmare. Dont be tempted to flatten an entire wide board and then rip the frame parts from it; that will lead to bowed or twisted stock. Instead, start with rough-sawn 4/4 stock and rip the parts oversize on the bandsaw. Crosscut the stock to remove any serious twist, bowing, or knots, but keep it as long as possible to reduce the number of pieces youll have to rout. Then joint and plane the boards to final thickness (mine finished at 34 in.), and rip to the exact width on the tablesaw.

A D J U S TA B L E B I T F O R P LY WO O D PA N E L S
Most bit sets cut a -in. groove in the stiles and rails. And that works fine for MDF panels, which are a true in. Unfortunately, veneered plywood typically measures less than that and will leave an unsightly gap. One solution is an adjustable bit set, made by both Freud and Amana. These feature a pair of stacked cutters that can be adjusted from 3 16 in. to 9 32 in. for -in. plywood by installing or removing shims. It took me about a half hour to set up the bits, but the

Plywood in -in. groove

Rout the edge profile on all pieces

Now you can rout the edge profile on all of the door-frame pieces while they are still long. Start with the stick bit in your router. Adjust the height until you produce a profile with a 116-in. fillet at the top. A shallower fillet would create a weak upper portion of the joint and a deeper fillet would locate the panel groove too far toward the back, creating a thin rear wall. Align the router-table fence precisely with the guide bearing on the bit. Attach featherboards to hold the stock against the table and fence when routing. If youre using a smaller router or a very hard wood such as oak or maple, you may need to take two passes to reach final depth. In that case, set up for a threequarter-depth cut and rout all the stock before adjusting the fence for the
www.fi newoodwor k i n g.com

resulting fit was precise. At $160 to $180, an adjustable set is worth it if you work ADJUSTABLE BIT SET with plywood.
Groove width is adjusted for perfect fit.

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COPYRIGHT 2007 by The Taunton Press, Inc. Copying and distribution of this article is not permitted.

1 Rout the profile

Make the edge profiles first. Even before the frame pieces are cut to size, rout their edge profiles to accept the panel. Do this in one or two passes, using the sticking bit.
Fence Featherboards Frame piece

Sticking bit

1 16

in.

Router table

final pass. Removing the bulk of the waste on the first pass will yield a cleaner surface on the second.

Use a story stick for crosscutting

Once the edges have been profiled, its time to cut all the parts to final length. Instead of a tape measure, I made a story stick to record the width and height of the case openings, along with the number of doors that fit in the opening. For cases with two doors, I measured the width and marked the halfway point. I then used the story stick to set up the tablesaw for crosscutting. I started with the stiles, which run top to bottom in the case

opening. First I clamped a stop block to the rip fence in front of the blade, to prevent the stile from binding between the blade and the fence during cutting. Then it was simply a matter of aligning the mark on the story stick with the blade and setting the fence so that the stop block was flush with the end of the stick. Cut the stiles, making sure to mark the door number on each piece. Cutting the rails to length is a bit trickier. Because they fit between the stiles, you must account not only for the width of the stiles but also the depth of the stub tenons. This can lead to some head-scratching, but I found a simple method that let me dispense with the math. First, make a setup block that is equal to the width of the two stiles minus the depth of the panel grooves. Use this setup block in conjunction with the story stick to quickly dial in

2 Cut the stiles

Put away your tape measure. Mark the door-frame length and width measurements on a thin story stick. Youll transfer the marks directly to the tablesaw.

Clamp a stop block to the rip fence. Use the story stick to set the rip fence for crosscutting the stiles.
Photos, except where noted: Charlie Reina; drawings: Vince Babak

COPYRIGHT 2007 by The Taunton Press, Inc. Copying and distribution of this article is not permitted.

the right dimensions for the rails. Because rails are usually short, use a stop block clamped to the crosscut-sled fence to set the length. Again, align the mark on the story stick with the blade; then rest the setup block on the story stick flush with the end, and pencil a line on the sled to mark the end of the rail. Clamp the stop block at the line and cut the rails.

3 Cut the rails

Cutting the rails requires an extra step. Start by cutting a block to the width of two rails minus the combined depth of their grooves. When you subtract this distance from the door width, youll get the correct length of the rails.

A sled for end-routing

With the parts cut to length, its time to install the coping bit and profile the ends of the rails. Do not try to run these rails against the router-table fence without additional support; the pieces are too narrow to stay square against the fence. Instead, use a simple plywood sled fitted with holddown clamps to run the stock squarely and safely across the bit. But before setting up the sled, cope the long edge of an extra piece of frame stock to make a special backing block. This piece will marry with the profiled edge of the rail stock and prevent tearout. When the other end of the rail is routed, the trailing edge will be flat, and a flat backer block will suffice. After the backing block is made, clamp an offcut in the sled and take a test cut. Adjust the bits height until the two pieces are flush and youre ready to cope the rails. Start with the flat edge against the sled fence and cope the first end. Then rotate the rail, insert the backing block into the panel groove, and cope the second end.

Make the panels undersize in width

With the frames complete, all thats left to do is to size the panels. I made them 116 in. narrower than the length of the rails. This is to accommodate the slight amount of seasonal movement (yes, even MDF moves), and to make sure the panel allows the frame parts to seat fully during glue-up. The panels length equals the stile length minus the setupblock length. The MDF I used fit very snugly into the panel groove, so I knocked the panels corners off quickly with a
Use the block to set up the cut. With the story sticks door-width mark aligned with the sawblade, use the block to draw a line on the sled fence.

Cut all the stiles. Lead with the profiled edges to keep them free of chipout. A well-made crosscut sled keeps the cuts square. www.fi newoodwor k i n g.com

Cut the rails. With a stop block clamped at the line, you can cut all the rails to a precise and uniform length for a specific door size.
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4 Cope the rails

A SHOPMADE SLED FOR PRECISE COPING
Hold-down clamp

Plywood base, in. thick by 8 in. wide by 14 in. long

3 in.

MDF fence, in. thick by 8 in. wide by 6 in. long

Hold-down clamp Fence Coping bit Rail

Profile the rail ends. Switch to the coping bit and use the sled to keep the rails square and secure for their end cuts. After making test cuts to ensure the faces will be flush (left), begin by coping the rail with the flat edge against the fence (above).

1 16

in.

Sled

Back the profile with its mate. Before coping the opposite end, run a short length of scrap past the coping bit to make a backer block for the rails profiled edge (above). With the backer block mated behind the piece, cope the second rail end (right).

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FINE WOODWORKING

COPYRIGHT 2007 by The Taunton Press, Inc. Copying and distribution of this article is not permitted.

5 Assemble the panels

Placing the panel is key. Line up the panel precisely between the layout marks, and push it down to the groove bottom. This will keep the rest of the assembly square.

Mark and glue one stile. After marking the location of the panel on one of the stiles, apply glue inside the entire length of the stiles groove. The panel will be glued to the stiles only.

block plane. (Unlike plywood, which is thinner than its nominal thickness, MDF measures out on the mark.)

Attach the rails. After applying glue to the leading end of one rail, slide it down the panel edge and fit its stub tenon into place in the stile groove. Do the same with the second rail. Complete the assembly by gluing on the last stile.

How to keep it all square

Gluing up cope-and-stick doors is a challenge. One concern is that the stub tenons could slide along the panel groove, making it difficult to glue up the parts square. Or, the panel could fit so tight that it seizes up on contact with the glue, making it very difficult to square up the parts. Fortunately, this procedure eliminates both potential problems. I installed the panel in a stile groove first, then slid the rails on, and finally, added the second stile. To position the panel correctly, mark its location on the stile by holding a rail in place and marking the width of its tenon. Apply glue along the panel grooves of the stiles only. Then apply glue to the coped ends of the rails. If there is glue in the rail grooves, they wont slide along the panel. Install the panel, making sure its fully seated. Then push a rail onto the panel, fully seating it, and slide it down onto the stile. Install the second rail in the same manner, using the panel to align the rails parallel to each other and square to the stiles. All thats left is to install the last stile. Once thats done, clamp along the entire joint. Be careful not to apply too much pressure across the panel, because its slightly narrower than the rails, and the stiles could bow inward. Use a straightedge to make sure the stiles are flat with the rails. The short tenons provide little resistance against flexing upward.
Michael Pekovich is Fine Woodworkings art director.
www.fi newoodwor k i n g.com

Check and clamp. Before tightening the clamps, use a straightedge to make sure the panel is flat in all directions. Adjust the clamps if necessary, and tighten.
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COPYRIGHT 2007 by The Taunton Press, Inc. Copying and distribution of this article is not permitted.