How To Make A Raised Panel Cabinet Door

hey guys in today's video I'm going to show you step-by-step how to make this raised panel door what I have in front of me is this walnut sample door that I made it's made out of 3/4 inch wall nut including a solid panel 3/4 of an inch raised panel in the center of the door to make this we're gonna first start by using the railing style or the cope & stick bit set and that's going to put this detail on the inside edge of your rails and your styles and it's also going to be cutting the joinery on the edges of your rails once you set these two bits up you can really batch pieces out in no time and the last bit we're gonna be using is the raised panel bit and what makes this bit so special is that it also includes a back cutter on it so with the fundamentals of these bits I think you'll be able to knock out cabinet doors in no time and they look really good so let's quit get started I'd like to thank today's sponsor and that's bits and bits company check them out at bits bits com I'm gonna be making this door out of this beautiful piece of walnut I had in the lumber rack now when we make this there's a couple things that you need to keep in mind the first being your pieces need to be the same exact thickness so your rails your styles and your panel need to be three-quarters of an inch so I'm gonna be running all this material through the jointer in the planer at the same time to make sure that they're the exact thickness that I needed them to be the second thing you want to make sure you have plenty of extra stock on hand and I'm talking about stock that's mill to the same thickness so I'm gonna be cutting this down milling it to three-quarters of an inch and cutting the rails and stiles to two and a quarter of an inch wide now typically rails and stiles range anywhere from two to two and a half inches I'm going with two and a quarter for this I'm not gonna cut them to length just yet after I get everything milled up and some pieces cut I'm gonna talk about how to measure the length of your rails and stiles but now I'm gonna take this down to 3/4 of an inch thick [Music] got the pieces milled to 3/4 and we talked about cutting them to width and the show faces now let's talk about the link for the rails and the styles now I've got a drawing here it's pretty darn accurate if I might say it depicts the final door size of 12 inches wide and 18 inches long now to determine the length of the Stiles it's pretty simple it's just the overall length of the door so we cut those to 18 inches now to determine the length of the rails we've got to do a little bit of math and it's nothing too crazy so to begin the math is pretty simple take 12 inches wide which is the overall width of the door and subtract the width of two styles so we remember these are two and a quarter two and a quarter so that's 12 minus 4 and a 1/2 now we got 7 and a half inches is that seven and a half though is only going to put us a piece that's right in the middle it's not going to include any joinery at all now this railing style kit puts a tenon on the end of your rails and this is a scrap piece that I cut from probably two or three weeks ago and as you can see it puts a 3/8 of an inch tenon on the end and if you get confused by looking at these pieces because of you know they're pretty crazy-looking if you never used them just flip them over it's just like any mortise and tenon or Indy tenon rather and you can measure it it's 3/8 of an inch on both ends so remember we had that seven and a half inches but we need to add the 3/8 of an inch on both ends of the rails and that's going to give us three quarters of an inch total so it takes seven and a half plus the 3/4 and now we got a total length of eight and a quarter that's the link that we need to cut our rails and the 18 inches is the link we need to cut our Stiles let's take a second to chat about the bits and I'm going to be using on the first part of this video and that's to make the Raylan style or the cope & stick panels this is the white side six zero zero two it is the og pattern Raylan style set they do make all kinds of different profiles and what makes these special is they are astra coded by today's video sponsor and that's bits and bits company and the coding allows for a higher speed and feed rates as well as the extended tool life and the astra coding has specific ingredients like silicone help keep the bits clean as they are cutting or routing when you're spending this kind of money for a bit set like this that you're gonna be using quite often in your shop especially if you make a lot of cabinet doors you want to take the time to investigate the astra coated bits because again they're gonna last longer and in the long run save you money now let's talk about running your stock through the router every single operation for the six zero zero to a the to be and the race panel you're always gonna have your show face down on the router when you're running it through so mark your show faces and remember to always run those facing down now to begin we're going to be cutting the ends of our rails or often called the cope cut because as you can see if you're familiar with coping it's going to cut the reverse of this profile on the edge of your styles or the stick cut and it's also going to give us a tenant so this is the six zero zero to be and as you can see if i'm get it on camera here it's going to cut that tenon and the reverse of this profile the next bit which is a six zero zero two a and that's going to be cutting the beating and the groove again upside down on not only your styles but the edges of your rails as well so we're gonna run the six zero zero to be first to cut the cope and the tenon and then put the six zero zero to a in to cut this profile on the inside edge of all four parts to set the height of the bit there's two things that I like to look at the first being the thickness of this leading edge and then the total depth of this shoulder right here what I try to shoot for is an eighth of an inch depth here on the back and then three thirty-seconds on the front right here so to do that take your scrap piece and with walnut being kind of dark it's going to be a little hard to see but I've got this set to an eighth of an inch again this is the back show face will be down but take that eighth of an inch and make a mark and now we need to just line up this cutter right here the bottom of this cutter needs to touch the bottom or touch this line rather because remember it's going to be removing this shoulder way so the bottom of this cutter needs to line up with our eighth of an inch line make sure that your router is unplugged obviously and line it up until it looks good remember this is always scrap piece run it a few times dial it in just perfect before you run your final stock and you'll be good to go and finally this has a bearing in the center you want to make sure that your fence is even with that bearing and it's good to go now the last thing before cutting I know I'll keep saying the last last thing quite often but because you need to have a backer board because when you have something that's this narrow it's going to tilt so have a backer board that when you push it through with your push pads it's going to support it and also help with any potential blowout as much as possible but the main thing is the safety of it where you could use something like a coping sled but a nice wide piece of scrap wood will work perfect so let's make a cut [Music] [Music] so after the first run everything is decent it's a little off this back shoulder is a little under 1/8 of an inch and this leading edge is thicker than 3/32 so what I need to do then is lower the bit just a little bit and what that's going to do is make this shoulder a little bit taller and make this a little bit thinner so I've done that and I'm going to rotate it and make another pass after making that quick adjustment everything is set exactly how I want it so now I can go ahead and run the stock I've removed the six zero zero to be and install the six zero zero to a and this is going to cut the groove and the profile on the edges of both the rails and the Stiles now to set the height of this you want to get the top of this cutter flush with the top of your tenon so I'm taking a piece that I just cut one of the rail pieces and lowering it until it's flush now that's set I'm going to pull the fence in flush with again the bearing on top not in the middle and make a test cut to keep consistent pressure you're gonna want to use feather boards what I'm using are just some clear cut gods I believe they're called that not only puts pressure down but the wheels are angled at such a way that it keeps the piece pulled up tight against the fence the desired outcome is this perfectly flush and it's flush on the bottom this is not raised up nor is the style raised up on the end it is perfectly flat I don't even need to move anything it slides right in there and it's flush if you have it to where this is raised up or this is raised up you need to adjust your bit now another way to determine flip it over flip it over again slides right into place now with a little bit of glue on there that tenon is going to swell and it's going to become a strong joint so as you can see this is dialed in just perfect I'd like to take a minute to mark the inside edge of the board because I got the grain laid out like how I won it so when I'm at the router table there's no guessing [Music] [Music] check it out guys we got a perfect door and one of the most important parts is the size of it it's 12 actually here 12 by 18 which is what we set out to make so now we need a measure for the center panel and what I like to do to confirm my size is you don't really need to do this you should be able to do with basic math but I like to flip it over because look it's just a regular door and now we can just measure the inside and add the depth of the groove to get our number so we'll start with the length of the panel 13 and 1/2 plus 3/4 because remember 3/8 plus 3/8 so it's 13 and 1/2 plus 3/4 gives you 14 in the quarters so on the width of the panel you can actually just go off with the length of your rail to determine that and it was 8 and 1/4 but to confirm again it's 7 and 1/2 plus 3/4 so that's 8 and 1/4 however from my panel which already have cut here I'm gonna allow for some seasonal movement on line so I'm gonna remove about 1/8 of an inch off of that number so instead of it being 8 and 1/4 I made mine 8 and 1/8 wide but on the length I went the full 14 and a quarter this is just my preference if you want to remove more or none at all if it's a solid panel that's completely up to you but I like to remove about 1/8 of an inch off of a door this size and that's gonna allow for some seasonal movement so I've already got my panel cut to size and as you can see I went with something that has some figure in the center of it and it's going to be a good-looking panel when you add some finish now that we have the panel cut to size we need to install the final bit which is the raised panel bit plus it has the back cutter on it so let's head on over to the router table one more time but now we're gonna be installing the largest cutter that I've ever used and this is a raised panel bit that also includes the back cutter and look how large it is here's the railing style bit in comparison and a quarter inch bit this thing is freakin huge so that means you're gonna need to run it slow and you're gonna need a powerful router so this is what this bit is going to do for you here's a sample router or a sample panel not router made out of cherry as you can see it put the cove pattern on the front which is really awesome looking and nice clean-cut it also does the back cut because remember this is a 3/4 of an inch panel and if you don't remove waste on the back you're not going to be able to fit this inside of that quarter inch groove that we cut using the railing style bit so if you didn't have a back cutter on it you would have to do a second operation and cut a rabbet on it using something like a dado stack or another bit here at the router table so what makes this bit special is that it has the back cutter on it again at the top because remember everything is facedown when you run it through here so that's what makes this bit so special as it does both operations in one pass and that also means that we're gonna have to run it nice and slow and remove the we're gonna have to move the fence back a little bit make a pass back a little bit more and keep moving it back until we are flush with the bearing way on the inside of that bit setting the height on this bit is extremely difficult because you can't really fit this in there to really judge it but what you're shooting for is this tenon right here to fit in between the back cutter and the coke cutter so all you can do is really get down low and try to guesstimate where it needs to go but ultimately you're gonna have to do a few test cuts and get as close as you can so I think I've got to wear the top of this tenon is write directly on the bottom of that back cutter and I'm just gonna have to give it a give it a test or two and see if it'll go you know like I mentioned a minute ago I had to move the fence back four to five times to get it even with the bearing on the router bit this bit is really large so you need to run your router slow and take your time you know another tip that I have for you is if you're running your piece over the bit and it's chattering or it's vibrating pretty crazy just run it over the bit one more time before moving your fence back and this ensures that you've got the cleanest cut possible and that it removes all the waste that it's going to instead of missing stuff so just like everything else you want to make sure that this slides in without lifting this up and that it's nice and flush on the bottom so you pull this out one more time and show you just real light pressure push it in all the way flip it over and it's flush across here and like I mentioned now that the bit is set up and dialed in exactly where I want it I can go ahead and run the final piece the actual panel that I'm using on the door and you'll notice again that I have it backed up with a piece of plywood and like always after you run the endgrain I'll rotate it and cut the profile on the edge and with any luck this is the kind of panel that you should be expecting The Cove is perfect nice and smooth with a back cut on it so that it will fit inside of the groove just perfectly and I would be lying if I said that I didn't put the door together just to see what its gonna look like and I was extremely thrilled with it you always want to pre finish your panels like this before gluing up the door just in case you get seasonal movement which is a thing if for some reason you don't pre finish it and your panel doesn't get finished on the entire surface you could see unfinished portions of the panel during the seasonal movement so I sanded up to 220 grit for all the profiles I've found that I could start with 150 grit to say in those I found that using sanding contours and things like dowel rods to be extremely helpful for sanding the panel this piece here is just a small little sanding contour that I have picked up a pack of those from I think Wroclaw or a wood craft one of the two they have different sizes and then on the cove on the front I just used a one and a quarter inch dowel rod and it fit in the area pretty well for demoing purposes I just applied a wiping varnish to the door so I'm first cleaning and removing the dust using a tack cloth I ended up putting a total of three coats of the wiping varnish on the panel before gluing the door frame together the panel is prefinished we can go ahead and glue the door together it's pretty simple just put glue on the tenon portion of the rails and assemble the door now since we cut the panel an eighth of an inch narrower we need to make sure that the panel is centered in the frame I left the panel in the two to three hours for the glue to dry after the glue I can sand the frame up to the same 220 grit and you'll actually notice that I ended up sanding the center of the raised panel because accidentally scuffed it it's not a big deal just sand the surface with your 220 grit and prep it for the same varnish that you're gonna be putting on the rest of the door two or three coats later and your doors done well hope you guys enjoy the video and learn a few things I think once you learn how to set up these router bits you can batch out cabinet doors in no time with the information that I shared about how to measure for the length of your rails and you obviously know how to measure for the length of your Stiles I mean you can batch out cabinet doors all day long with this set up and make and produce just fantastic results especially with that raised panel bit and with the back cutter is just going to save you some time so I hope you enjoyed the video and if you have any questions about this leave them down below and I will try to answer those but one other thing that I wanted to mention in this video is not about what cabinet finished to use or what finish to use on your cabinets or your cabinet doors I just put a wiping varnish on here for the purposes of this demo you want to research the other stuff there's conversion varnishes conversion varnishes lacquers and all kinds of more durable finishes for cabinetry I just used a wiping varnish just for the demo purposes but and I also want to thank bits and bits for sponsoring this video and making videos like this possible for me definitely check out their after coating on these bits because if you're spending the money for these bits anyway check out their after coating because they're gonna last longer stay sharper and cleaner so definitely check out their Astra coating I will leave a link to all three of these bits in the description below for you to check out as well as a coupon code to save 15% off of your next order so I appreciate you watching I think with these three bits are gonna be knocking out cabinet doors in no time if you have any questions leave it below subscribe to the channel if you're not and don't forget to Like and leave a comment so with that out of the way I will see you in the next build video which will be a haul tail well hopefully it's sitting right there it's not finished yet but that will be the next build video here in the channel so I appreciate you watching yeah see you in the next build video you

Channel: SimpleCove

Views: 149,108

Keywords: simplecove woodworking how-to diy handmade jointer planer, custom furniture

Id: 1fONOs0B25s

Length: 18min 53sec (1133 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 01 2020