Pg. 34
Making the Door
Cabinet doors are made in many different styles. Most cabinet
doors are made with the frame and panel design because it
is a good way of making a wide door without the expansion
and contraction problems of solid wood. The style of the door
determines the hardware design that can be used to mount
it. If the door ts inside the face frame, it is called an “inset”
door and requires the appropriate hardware. Furniture often is
made with inset doors. Cabinets are usually made with over-
lay doors which are wider than the face frame opening. The
rst consideration should be whether you want overlay or inset
style doors.
If you choose overlay doors, the next decision is how much
overlay you want. Traditional cabinets typically use a 1/2” over-
lay, meaning the door covers a 1/2” of the face frame on all
sides. Usually the overlay door is one inch wider and one inch
longer than the face frame opening. The 15” sample cabinet
door opening in the face frame is 20-1/2” by 12”. The door
will be made to be 21-1/2” by 13”.The amount of overlay is
determined by the hinge design. There are many choices in
hardware and the details of the choices available are beyond
the scope of this booklet. Magazines, books, catalogs, home
centers and home shows are good sources of information.
There are many considerations when choosing hardware.
Concealed hinges provide a more contemporary look and are
typically used with solid, composite laminate or at panel doors
in either an overlay or inset style. All things being equal, overlay
doors are easier to make and install because, with inset doors,
the openings and the doors must be perfectly square.
Concealed European style cup hinges typically mount into a
35mm (diameter) hole bored 1/2” deep into the door, requiring
a 35mm forstner bit used in a drill press. If you don’t have a drill
press, there are some jigs available through catalogs, which
make a portable drill work like a drill press.
For the 15” sample cabinet that we are making in this booklet,
we are using an overlay door that is one inch longer and one
inch wider than the face frame opening. We are using two Eu-
ropean style cup hinges for the door which are placed in 35mm
holes in the door frames.The standard for mounting door hard-
ware is to mount the centerline of the hinge 3” in from the top
and bottom of the door. If the hinge provides a 1/2” overlay,
then the centerline of the hinge should be mounted to the face
frame 2-1/2” below where the stile meets the rail.
A huge advantage of the European style cup hinge is the ad-
justability factor. These hinges have screws that allow the
door to be adjusted up or down or in and out which allows for
squaring, leveling and alignment with the other doors in a set
of cabinets.
After deciding on the door design and what kind of hinges you
will use, you are ready to make the door. The door that we
are making for the 15” cabinet is a simple panel door. The
frame is made of the top and bottom rail (horizontal members)
and the side stiles (vertical members). The side stiles run the
length of the door and cover the end grain of the horizontal
rails. There are two options for making the door frames, which
are shown in Fig. 34-A and 34-B on page 34. The easiest op-
tion is the stub tenon, which is made with standard woodwork-
ing equipment such as a dado blade or a slot cutter router bit.
The door stiles and rails are 2” inches wide by 3/4” of an inch
thick. A 1/2” deep dado that is 1/4” wide is made on the inside
of both the rail and the stile pieces. The dado on the inside
of the door is the space in which the door panel is located.
The stub tenon, which is 1/2” by 1/4”, is the same size as the
dado and is glued in the dado after the door panel is tted to
the door frame. The stub tenon has a number of advantages.
It is fairly easy to make and doesn’t require the purchase of
special equipment such as a matching set of router or shaper
cutters. The simple design compliments just about any style
of décor and is especially at home with the very popular Arts
and Crafts designs. If you use the stub tenon, remember to
add the 1” measurement (1/2” on each side) to the door rail.
The rail for the 13” wide door should be 10” long.
Stub Tenon Door
1/4” Dado
3/4”
2”
1/2”
Stub
Tenon
1/2” by 1/4” Dado
1/2”
Stile
Rail
34-A