I had a customer in New York who had some odd shaped/sized kitchen cabinet doors, and they could not purchase something “off the shelf” to redo their cabinet doors. Since the doors covered the cabinet fronts entirely (i.e. European style cabinets) they wanted something that was the same measurements as their existing cabinet doors, but in red oak.
So I built them a sample to see if they liked it. The cabinet was a simple set of two rails (vertical pieces) and two stiles (horizontal pieces) that were 2 inches wide, and a simple plywood “floating” panel in the middle.
The first step was to rip and crosscut the rails and stiles to size (2 inches wide, different lengths for rails and stiles) and mill them down to 5/8” thick (rather than the standard ¾” thick doors). From there, I needed to cut a groove in the middle to hold the panel. I cut the grooves on the tablesaw.
However, in the rails, I had to do a “stopped groove” by not going all the way through. Otherwise it would have shown on the top and bottom of the door. So I had to stop the groove and clean up the ends with a chisel on the workbench.
From there, I used a domino machine to create slot mortises in the ends and sides of the rails and stiles.
This shows them all put together and test fitted. Nice and tight.
From there, it was on to the ½” thick plywood panel. I milled a dado on all four sides of the plywood, and then did a test fit to make sure it fit snuggly in the grooves that were made.
From there, it was on to glue up and clamping to make it tight. I checked the measurements on the diagonal of the door to make sure it was square.
After that, I applied three coats of clear finish, no stain whatsoever. This shows the interesting grain pattern of the red oak.
Customer has the sample now and I am waiting on feedback to see where we go from there.
Interesting project!
Kevin