Cabinet doors - Did I goof up? Need advice.

[Joe_Ott]

Hi folks.

Need a little advice from you kitchen cabinet experts/builders...

Some of you know, but I am in the process of building kitchen cabinets. I built a case, then built the face frame to fit (using Cherry and all inset doors/drawers). I then made my first door.
The door is made with Whiteside rail and stile bits with a flat panel.

Here's my question(s): I made the door slightly over sized on purpose with the thought of trimming it to fit. But now I am second guessing myself. Is this the normal way? How much smaller should the door be to the opening? Should there be a 1/16" or 1/8" all the way around as a rule? What's the 'standard'?

Thanks.
Joe

[Mike Evertsen]

you are going in right direction,,, its better to trim than to stretch
I leave a 1/16 around the doors

[Lee Schierer]

I don't know if there are rules, but I tend to keep the gaps on inset doors and drawers as small as possible. 1/16" is generally good, 3/32 is where I usually end up. You can bevel the edge of the door away from the hinge so the face dimension is longer than the inside dimension and the door will swing open without hitting and the gap on the front will be smaller. If you make the gap too small, you can trim the piece to make the gap larger if you need to. Other wise you need a board stretcher and I don't loan mine out.

Remember that most finishes will increase the size of doors and drawers slightly.

[Eric Apple - Central IN]

For inset doors, I bevel the edge of the door opposite the hinge maybe 5 deg. You can then cut the door to a closer tolerence and have it fit nicely. Depending upon the dimension, I find 3/32 is usually an adequate overall gap size. That's a 3/64 gap all around the door. Hmmm- going back and reading better I should have said "What Lee said" ;-)

[Paul Dwight]

I generally use pennies or dimes as spacers to fit inset doors, so the reveal ends up being whatever the thickness of a penny or a dime is -- about 1/16, I suppose. My favorite way to trim an inset door is to use one of those aluminum clamp-and-guide things and a flush-trim bit in a table-mounted router. I square the bottom edge of the door to the hinge side, then set the door in the opening using pennies on the bottom and hinge side to set those reveals. Using the actual door opening as a guide, I put pencil marks on the top and bottom of the side opposite the hinge to show me where to trim. I clamp the aluminum guide across the pencil marks and trim the door with the flush trim bit in the router. Repeat the mark-and-trim process for the top, and I'm done. The big advantage of this process is that it easily fits a door to an out-of-square opening. Hope this helps. -- Paul

[jack duren]

how tight a fit depends on the hardware. a 1/16 looks great but thats as tight as full inset door hardware will generally let you get by with and thats almost to close as it drags as it opens.

usually on a customer ill give it a 3/16 deduction for inset doors overall. but on my bar ive went with a lil better than 1/16 on all sides as it wont have a rail between the doors and drawers.

i find its always better to make thenm the size there intended to be so you dont have to "play" with the numbers. but on occasions if i set my planer to run the 2" door parts prior to cutting stile/rail lengths and its a bit "full" ill leave it....jack

[Joe_Ott]

I am using is all Blum (Tandem slides and hinges with the face frame adapter).

Thanks,
Joe

[Todd Burch]

I make mine oversize and cut to fit. Much faster for me that way. If the glue-up is not perfectly square, I make the door gets squared when fitting to size. Conversley, if the opening is not exactamundo, I get to cut the door to fit. Also, when you know you are cutting off the outside edges, you don't have to worry about clamp marks or glue squeeze out or perfect alignment, or really even getting the outside edges jointed perfectly prior to assembly, just so long as one side is good enough to run along a rip fence, or sit against the fence of a crosscut sled.

Todd.

[jack duren]

i pulled one of the BLUM full inset frame mount plates from my hardware junk box(did i say i like "SALICE ")..it sits in 1/16 as does the SALICE....jack

[Kirk (KC) Constable]

I've made a lot of doors, and always struggle with the fit. I like Paul's way of using the actual opening to mark the cut. One of those simple things that I woulda never thught of....

KC

[Joe_Ott]

for all the replies fellas. A lot of good advice and things I would never have thought of.

Thanks again.
Joe