Door making instructions

[Jim Mackell]

I've made kitchen cabinet doors before with my router table using simple rail and stile construction. I now need to make a few actual doors in the 30 x 80 range. Most of the steps should be similar. But I'm puzzled by the necessary inclusion of tenons and mortises.

I think for the sake of maximum strength that my rails should have tenons at least 2 or 3 inches long. I know how to make the mortises and the tenons but how to blend in the groove for the door panel has me somewhat confused. If the entire length of the stile had a 90 degree edge, the mortise would just be a deepening of the groove. But what I want is for the portion of the stile that contains the panel to have an ogee profile. This article by Tom Hintz http://www.newwoodworker.com/ralstilbitset.html explains cabinet door set up very well. Anyone have a good link for larger door making setups? Thanks!

[Sam Layton]

Hi Jim,

Search this forum for, Interior door build, I built my bathroom door. I used loose tenons, and they worked very good. If you have any questions I will try to answer.

Sam

[Jay Jolliffe]

The last doors I made their were 19 all made from African Mahogany. I used a router with a mortising jig a long bit to mortise the stiles & rails. I made my own loose tenons from the same Mahogany. Worked great. I applied the molding around the panels. Sorry about the picture. I'm not to good with a camera.
I don't know why the pic is sideways, didn't start out that way.

[Jim Mackell]

Sam, that original post from last November answered a lot of my questions. Never considered floating tenons. I can see that just making a mortise on both the rails and the stiles will be much easier that what I was envisioning. Jay, thank you for also pointing that out.

[Peter Quinn]

You can get door sets for interior/exterior doors from Freud or Amana with a stub spindle that will allow you to have a molded profile with integral tenons and coped rail cuts. Take a look at either Freud or Amana sites for similar sets with a stub coping cutter.

To make an integral tenon with a shaper, you need a massive shaper with massive tooling, or again a stub spindle, but I haven't seen those for sale recently.

At work we use dowels for most cope and stick doors. They are 1/2" hard maple dowels 6" long, at least two to three per rail joint. Very strong and quick to make, not my favorite thing for exterior, I simply don't trust them in the event the door takes heavy weather.

At home I use loose tenons just like Sam, very nearly as strong as a good M&T joint, and stronger than a bad one!

[Matt Zuko]

The last doors I made their were 19 all made from African Mahogany. I used a router with a mortising jig a long bit to mortise the stiles & rails. I made my own loose tenons from the same Mahogany. Worked great. I applied the molding around the panels. Sorry about the picture. I'm not to good with a camera.
I don't know why the pic is sideways, didn't start out that way.


Jay when you say you " I applied the molding around the panels" do you mean when you put the door together, around the panel was 90 degree flat edges?? I am new and always thought anything with raised panels that that was routed into the edge of the rail and style, with matching rail and style router bits? Am I incorrect in my thinking, it it usuallt applied after teh fact as molding? Thanks

[Peter Quinn]

Jay when you say you " I applied the molding around the panels" do you mean when you put the door together, around the panel was 90 degree flat edges?? I am new and always thought anything with raised panels that that was routed into the edge of the rail and style, with matching rail and style router bits? Am I incorrect in my thinking, it it usuallt applied after teh fact as molding? Thanks

Most commercially made doors do use a matched set where the molded profile you see is shaped into the edge of the rails and stiles to form the panel groove, and the 'cope' or negative of this profile is shaped into the ends of the rails along with a stub tenon. It is much quicker and gives a coped joint at each intersection that won't open up as easily with seasonal movement.

But, if you want to make doors but don't want to invest in shapers with expensive tooling or large router tables with large router sets to go with them, you can make a very attractive door with square edges and applied moldings using minimal tooling. It just takes a bit longer.