cock beading cabinet doors

[Stephen Stark]

I will be starting a small kitchen project, nothing real fancy but I want to put a cock beading detail on the inner side of the stiles and rails. I was doing some door mock ups and I found a miter joint reinforced with a biscuit to be faster than other alternatives. Has anyone used this method with success? I guess I could put an additional spline in the outer corner to increase strength and reduce the risk of the joint opening. The materials are poplar stiles and rails with possibly an MDF? panel. Note this will be a painted project so splines showing will not be a major problem to paint over. One possible shortfall will be with mitered doors I think you have to have a bang-on size fit because you don't have a lot of trim available without ruining the look of the miter. Any suggestions? Thanks

[Thomas Williams]

I am about to start a similar project and will be using an applied bead. I plan to either use a stub tenon and then glue in the plywood panel, or just go with a mortise and tenon. I will only be making about 12 doors. The current FWW has an article on door construction.

[Joe Chritz]

Mitered doors aren't unusual at all, although I prefer a traditional door design myself.

Normally face frames are jack mitered when using a bead but for a paint project I would certainly use an applied bead. Very easy and very fast and with 23 gauge pins filling isn't even necessary.

I don't see why miters wouldn't work, especially since most of the frame is glued to a plywood or sheet good carcass.

A search here and through google will show lots of ways to do applied moulding.

Joe

[Steve Jenkins]

I've done a lot of mitered doors reinforced with a biscuit and have had no problems with them either short term or long term.

[Craig D Peltier]

Ive also done mitered doors with just glue an biscuits. I am careful to spread the glue all the way up an down and on the biscuit. Some doors its been a year with no complaints.My kitchens are mitered the same way with no seperation in 6 months.

I do use the wire clamps to hold them together, woodcraft sells them. Not sure if theres a proper name for them.They really draw the joints tight.

[Brian Peters]

Not a fan of mitered doors but we all do things a bit differently. I would do it cope and stick, if you don't have a shaper/cutter set do it on the table saw with a dado stack. A bit more skill and work to get it right but once its setup you are good. MDF panel and I would apply the moulding.

[David DeCristoforo]

More than a million ways to do this. But personally. I dislike the look of mitered doors in general although if they are under paint it might not be apparent that they are mitered. The biggest issue is, as you have already anticipated, trimming the doors can be a PITA. Since you cannot use a cope and stick approach on any profile with a full bead (sorry Brian), your next best bet is to use a "floating tenon". You can mill the slots first, then run the bead and make your jack miters without having to work around tenons and mortises. As far as the construction technique itself is concerned, mitered corners with biscuits will work fine. I have made thousands of chessboards with the corners joined in that manner and never had one fail. I have also made a lot of mitered cabinet doors (for customers who want them) using this method and never had one of those fail either. I just don't care for the look of mitered doors.

[Jeff Duncan]

Not a big fan of mitered doors either, but as said, everyones got their own way. One thing to keep in mind is mitered doors tend to show the joints through paint more so than a normal joint.
good luck,
JeffD

[Larry Fox]

I just did two mitered doors with a bead (although around the outside as opposed to the inside). I reinforced the miter joints with a Domino but a biscuit should work as well. Once piece of advise that I can give you though is to make sure that the crown of the bead is 1/32 or so below the face of the rail / stile. If not, they are a BUGGER to sand / scrape and prepare for finish. If they are level, you can't use a ROS and they all need to be done by hand which is tedious to make sure that you don't end up with cross-grain scratches at the corners. I did my beads with a scratch stock and they ended up level and the pre-finish surface prep step was a PITA.

[Brian Peters]

More than a million ways to do this. But personally. I dislike the look of mitered doors in general although if they are under paint it might not be apparent that they are mitered. The biggest issue is, as you have already anticipated, trimming the doors can be a PITA. Since you cannot use a cope and stick approach on any profile with a full bead (sorry Brian), your next best bet is to use a "floating tenon". You can mill the slots first, then run the bead and make your jack miters without having to work around tenons and mortises. As far as the construction technique itself is concerned, mitered corners with biscuits will work fine. I have made thousands of chessboards with the corners joined in that manner and never had one fail. I have also made a lot of mitered cabinet doors (for customers who want them) using this method and never had one of those fail either. I just don't care for the look of mitered doors.

I'm with David here on the mitered doors. I do mainly inset beaded face frame cabinets so that's probably where it comes from, most mitered doors are full overlay. But I'm definitely not a fan of jack mitering, it is too time consuming and if you get a bad part of the bead, or mess up, cut something too short you lose the whole stile/rail instead of a tiny piece of moulding that's quite cheap to make. With a dedicated guillotine or chop saw with a backer fence its fast. However theres no right or wrong way to get to the same end result, its something the woodworker has to figure out for themself. What works best for you based on your skills and tools.