Cutting a rectangular hole in a panel?

[Wade Lippman]

I am building a small table. Instead of having legs, it is supported by side panels about half the width of the top. My wife complains it is too heavy looking and wants some rectangular holes cut in in them.
The panels are 8x24, so the holes would be 4x16, centered. Wood is about 1/2" thick.

How would you cut them? I have a scroll saw, but haven't had good luck with straight lines.

Any great ideas?

[Dick Brown]

Router with clamped on guides, top bearing bit. Either cut the whole thing with it or clean up your jigsaw cut.

[Myk Rian]

What he said. Make a template out of hardboard.

[Kent A Bathurst]

"So let it be written. So let it be done."
- Yul Brynner in Exodus

[Wade Lippman]

A jigsaw!? How could I have not thought of that. Must be a matter of blood flow.
I am thinking it might be easier to clean up by routing against a fence with stops rather than making a template. No?

Thanks.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Make a fence that surrounds the rough cut opening....thus it becomes a template.....trim to the inside of the template. Just nail or use good double-sided tape to hole 4 straight pieces of wood to outline the final shape. Use a pattern bit in a router to final cut the opening.

[Brian Backner]

"So let it be written. So let it be done."
- Yul Brynner in Exodus

Actually, it was deMille's 2nd version of The Ten Commandments

[Kent A Bathurst]

Actually, it was deMille's 2nd version of The Ten Commandments



Arrrghhh............. You are correct. I am embarrassed. Nice catch, and thanks for the correction, Brian.


:mad:

[Ole Anderson]

Actually, it was deMille's 2nd version of The Ten Commandments
How do you guys know these things?:eek:

[Brian Holcombe]

A jigsaw!? How could I have not thought of that. Must be a matter of blood flow.
I am thinking it might be easier to clean up by routing against a fence with stops rather than making a template. No?

Thanks.

Block plane + chisel perhaps?

[Edward Oleen]

Drill a hole at each corner of the cutout - make SURE they are just within the lines of the cutout. Use a jig saw to cut between the holes. THEN use a router with a top bearing pattern bit against a straight edge to route each edge to size and smooth. Use your Jigsaw again, or before, to make the corners square. or leave them nicely rounded.

Finish up by using a round-over bit to ease the edges of the cutouts - this gives it a finished look. Leaving them squared off looks sort of crude.

That was what I did, only it was cut-outs in the doors to a cabinet my daughter wanted: we put sheet plastic over the inside of the doors to provide glazing. That was vastly easier than putting in individual panes.

That was five years ago. She still gets compliments on it, and they want to know where she bought it. When she says it was custom made they wonder how much. When she says "nothing", they think she's lying and it cost the moon...

[Peter Quinn]

If this rectangle is in the middle of a panel, to make a hole and lighten the look, I'd handle it like a drawer front opening made from a single board, with a thin kerf blade rip 4" out the whole length of the panel, cross cut from this your top and bottom sections taking care to match them back where they go, glue it back up, hard to even tell in most species after finishing. No routing, no jug saws, no chance for gross deviations.

[Brian Backner]

How do you guys know these things?:eek:

It's called getting old. One of the aspects of this is remembering a lot of random stuff that has no possible practical usage except to chastise people on chat boards ......

[Duane Meadows]

It's called getting old. One of the aspects of this is remembering a lot of random stuff that has no possible practical usage except to chastise people on chat boards ......

+1:) Exactly.

[Wade Lippman]

Drill a hole at each corner of the cutout - make SURE they are just within the lines of the cutout. Use a jig saw to cut between the holes. THEN use a router with a top bearing pattern bit against a straight edge to route each edge to size and smooth.

I did that, leaving 1/8" to 1/4" of scrap. When routing the first one it ripped some wood out that took a lot of sanding to fix. On the second one I climb cut first to reduce the amount of material, and then cut regularly to the line.

Was it unreasonable to expect the router to trim 1/4", or was it a a crappy router bit?

[Mike Null]

Assuming you were cutting hardwood or plywood I think that's a fairly ambitious cut.

[Phil Thien]

I'm late to the game here but I would have used a template, but a guide bushing in a router table alone with an upcut bit. I'd then nibble the material away 1/16" or 1/8" at a time, just raising the bit in the table a little bit each pass.