24" Lower Cabinet doors cut in half?

[Stuart Welsh]

I am trying to design a kitchen island that will resembled a rustic Spanish Colonial chest repurposed into an island and I have a decision to make on my doors. The frame on one side will feature three 24" wide openings for full inset doors. My original plan was to have two 12" (nominal) wide doors the have matching raised panel design. I am now reconsidering this because of the resulting narrow raised panels which will have complex designs that resemble hand carving. (This will be achieved with a router and then hand sanding, grinding etc to eliminate the machined look.) I am seeking opinion on essentially making 24" wide doors with the accompanying wider design and then ripping the doors in half. The goal is to use as thin a kerf as possible so as to not take away any more of the overall design. I realize this will be taking away from the strength of the door by cutting a rail and stile box in half. If I were to make the panel full width and simply apply fake rails and stiles with glue (or epoxy) and veneer the edges to hide the lamination might this work?

Stuart

Note: The design of the raised panels shown below is simplified for ease of CAD.

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[Adam Herman]

could you put a rail behind the panel to keep the open end of the stile/rail system together?
You could do this from the beginning and cut it in half. you would not have to notch the ends with an inset door, and you could half lap it with the rails for strength. the panel could be attached with a single slotted screw in the center of the hidden rail and left to float as normal around the other 3 sides.

I like the idea of a continuous carving across the whole face.

[Stuart Welsh]

could you put a rail behind the panel to keep the open end of the stile/rail system together?
You could do this from the beginning and cut it in half. you would not have to notch the ends with an inset door, and you could half lap it with the rails for strength. the panel could be attached with a single slotted screw in the center of the hidden rail and left to float as normal around the other 3 sides.

I like the idea of a continuous carving across the whole face.

I'm not sure what you are saying when you talk about the hidden rail. I'm going to guess that what you are describing is this:

Let's assume a door thickness of 3/4" at the frame. (The panel is either 3/4 or 1/2 an inch, doesn't really matter in this discussion.)

The panel is rabbeted out the width of the rails and stiles all around at a depth of 1/4" on both sides unless the panel is 1/2" thick in which cast the back side is not rabbeted.

The rails and stiles are 1/4" thick.

The rails and stiles are applied to the face of the panel on each side of the panel and half lapped to each other. This is essentially a picture frame on both sides sandwiching a panel between them.

The edges of the doors that meet, (i.e. not the hinge sides) DO NOT have STILES on the open ends of the outer face. This allows the design of the panel to be intact with the exception of the kerf between the doors.

This method that I assume you are suggesting would then provide a full, four sided frame on the back to give strength agains the torque of a door hanging on hinges. The real strength of the frame lies only in the back frame and the front stile and rails are only decorative.

Am I correct?

Thanks for the reply BTW.

[Charles Lent]

24" doors will be troublesome from a user point of view, Two 12" doors would be better. You could make them either way, but the preferred way would be your left picture design. With rails and stiles on all 4 edges of each door the door will be stronger and less likely to warp. Use straight grained lumber for the rails and stiles, preferably quarter sawn, and you will have good solid doors.

Charley

[Adam Herman]

nothing that complicated...

build the 24 in door like you would normally but with a vertical behind the center of the panel and well joined to the rail at each end. cut the 24 in door in 2 by slicing down the center of that vertical. now you will have 2 doors that look like one panel.

[Martin Wasner]

Skip putting a real in the face frame, put a wide mid rail in the door and put a couple of shallow kerfskerfs in it to mimic the rails that would be in the cabinet. I do it all the time for trash roll outs so they mimic drawers, dishwasher fronts so they look like drawers. Even on refrigerator fronts so the bottom single freezer door looks a pair of doors so it matches the top French doors.

You're over thinking this.

[Stuart Welsh]

Skip putting a real in the face frame, put a wide mid rail in the door and put a couple of shallow kerfskerfs in it to mimic the rails that would be in the cabinet. I do it all the time for trash roll outs so they mimic drawers, dishwasher fronts so they look like drawers. Even on refrigerator fronts so the bottom single freezer door looks a pair of doors so it matches the top French doors.

You're over thinking this.

Thanks for your reply and accompanying opinion.

"Skip putting a real in the face frame..." Putting a what in the face frame? I'm confused and assume when you say face frame you mean the rails and stiles of the door as I'm not using face frames. I understand the concept of a kerf playing tricks on the eye, I too have done this for all the base cabinets in my kitchen remodel. But I am not taking about rails, I'm tailing about stiles. As for overthinking... if you read my original post the question closely there was no overthinking. It was a solicitation for opinion on how to best build two doors to look like one by omitting the stiles on the outboard edge of each door while ensuring strength. My subsequent post in response to Adam Herman was quite detailed, perhaps overthought in your opinion, but again only very specific to ensure he and I were understanding each other.

As originally posted, I have 3 - 24" openings.

I want to avoid the cluttered look of 6 - 12" wide doors so I want to do the reverse of the visual trick we both employ in other applications. Rather than make one large piece look like a group of smaller pieces I want to make a set of smaller pieces look like one larger one. Your solution if consistent with your example of kerfs in door fronts seems to apply if I were intent on making a single 24" door look like two 12" doors. I want to make two 12" doors look as close to one 24" door. Charles Lent understands there are issues with a 24" door. Adam Herman seems to have the most simple and elegant idea. I'll follow his suggestion.

Again thanks for your reply. Sorry if you take offense at my explanation to your response, but it seems to imply a lack of understanding as to what I asked. The "overthinking" comment was unwarranted. For the benefit of others who may want to see an example of the visual effect we both use here is my dishwasher. The drawers to the right of the dishwasher are all functional. To the left are 1 real drawer on top and the remaining drawers are actually a trash pull out. (Before anyone asks, the floor is still on the "to do" list ;))

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[Adam Herman]

side track: i can never seem to get my dishwashers to slide in deep enough to hide that well, do you hold the cabinets out from the walls to create a bit more depth??

[Martin Wasner]

Thanks for your reply and accompanying opinion.

"Skip putting a real in the face frame..." Putting a what in the face frame? I'm confused and assume when you say face frame you mean the rails and stiles of the door as I'm not using face frames. I understand the concept of a kerf playing tricks on the eye, I too have done this for all the base cabinets in my kitchen remodel. But I am not taking about rails, I'm tailing about stiles. As for overthinking... if you read my original post the question closely there was no overthinking. It was a solicitation for opinion on how to best build two doors to look like one by omitting the stiles on the outboard edge of each door while ensuring strength. My subsequent post in response to Adam Herman was quite detailed, perhaps overthought in your opinion, but again only very specific to ensure he and I were understanding each other.

As originally posted, I have 3 - 24" openings.

I want to avoid the cluttered look of 6 - 12" wide doors so I want to do the reverse of the visual trick we both employ in other applications. Rather than make one large piece look like a group of smaller pieces I want to make a set of smaller pieces look like one larger one. Your solution if consistent with your example of kerfs in door fronts seems to apply if I were intent on making a single 24" door look like two 12" doors. I want to make two 12" doors look as close to one 24" door. Charles Lent understands there are issues with a 24" door. Adam Herman seems to have the most simple and elegant idea. I'll follow his suggestion.

Again thanks for your reply. Sorry if you take offense at my explanation to your response, but it seems to imply a lack of understanding as to what I asked. The "overthinking" comment was unwarranted. For the benefit of others who may want to see an example of the visual effect we both use here is my dishwasher. The drawers to the right of the dishwasher are all functional. To the left are 1 real drawer on top and the remaining drawers are actually a trash pull out. (Before anyone asks, the floor is still on the "to do" list ;))

351975351976


Yep, I misunderstood. I deeply regret anything unwarranted and any typos from auto fill that may have caused problems.

[Stuart Welsh]

side track: i can never seem to get my dishwashers to slide in deep enough to hide that well, do you hold the cabinets out from the walls to create a bit more depth??

I gutted my kitchen so while the rock was off I framed an opening in the back wall rather than pulling the cabinets forward. I doubled the rock on the back for sound as well as strength given there was a stud removed. (Fortunately in this case the backside of that wall is a mudroom bench that has a luan backer so I'm not worried about sound or penetration thru the rock from the other side of the wall.) The deeper recess also allowed me to wire and plumb in from the side rather than at the back, eliminated the kinking that can happen when you push the machine against a plug in the wall.

[Stuart Welsh]

No problem Martin, I appreciate you taking the time to weigh in!