Cherry Panels for a new Refrigerator

[Mike Henderson]

Sadly, our old refrigerator slowly gave out. It just wouldn't cool properly any more and we'd had problems with it in the past so it was time to get a new refrigerator.

The old refrigerator had raised panels on it to match the rest of the kitchen so when we bought a new one, we decided to go the same way. But that meant that we had to get new raised panels because the doors were all a different size. And the job of making those panels fell to yours truly.

The rest of the kitchen is cherry so these had to be cherry. I really picked over the cherry at my local supplier and found some with a nice figure in it. I think the professional guys don't want that figured stuff because it's harder to work with because of the wild grain and it doesn't match the non-figured wood they have. The doors took about $200 in cherry.

The job took longer than I expected. It's just a lot of work to get all the wood prepared, glued, and the profiles routed. And all the profiles had to be finish sanded by hand.

The finish is dewaxed shellac as a sanding sealer and water borne lacquer as the top coat.

My wife went out and found the handles. Putting those on was nerve racking because the two next to each other had to be exactly level to each other.

But, all-in-all, I was satisfied with the way it came out. I just hope this refrigerator lasts a looong time so that I don't have to go through this again:)

Mike

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[Jay Aubuchon]

Do you have to buy special magnets to stick to the cherry?

Seriously, that is lovely. I've never seen a refrigerator with wood panel doors.

[Mel Fulks]

I never saw the apeal of "harvest gold " , "avocado green" , or stainless steel fridge . But that is most attractive and strangly "warm".

[Tom Bain]

I opened this without carefully reading the title and thought, hey that is a really nice shaker armoir!

[John TenEyck]

Nice work and crazy nice wood, Mike. I'm not a fan of high gloss finishes but it sure shows off the grain.

John

[Jim Becker]

Wow....totally beautiful!

[Mike Henderson]

Nice work and crazy nice wood, Mike. I'm not a fan of high gloss finishes but it sure shows off the grain.

John

Thanks, everyone for your kind words.

John. I may rub the finish a bit to bring down the shine. All I had was gloss lacquer and that's what I shot. Should have waited unit I could get some with less gloss.

Cherry will darken up over time, but I really like the light color it has now.

Mike

[BTW, for those of you who haven't done refrigerator panels, the way you attach the panels is interesting. The refrigerator has a channel around the door and you can take one side of the channel off. To mount the panels, you attach a piece of thin plywood that rides in that channel and is screwed to the raised panel. You can either space the plywood off the raised panel with spacers, or do as I did and use 1/4" plywood and put a long chamfer on the four sides so I could slide the panel in.]

[Chet R Parks]

Hi Mike,
Beautiful piece of work, love the figured grain and the handles look great, almost like you went out in the woods and picked up a couple of sticks. It's no wonder that your happy with it.
Chet

[Frederick Skelly]

Looks great Mike!

[Lee Schierer]

Beautiful cherry. How did you attach the panels to the doors?

[glenn bradley]

Beautifully done Mike. I always enjoy your work. The wife and I were just talking about factoring this in for the next kitchen. Your example should really seal the deal.

[David Falkner]

Great work, Mike! I love Cherry and that's a very nice looking piece of furniture now.

David

[Mike Henderson]

Beautiful cherry. How did you attach the panels to the doors?

There are several ways that people attach those panels but I went the easy way. The doors have a metal molding that sticks out (forward) by about 3/8". That area contains a groove of about 1/4". The front of the groove (metal) is about 1/16". Visualize a piece of metal (aluminum) around the door, with about 1/16" between the door and the groove, a groove of 1/4", and the end of the groove (the metal that makes it a groove) of about 1/16".
You can remove one side of the molding so that you can slip the doors into the grooves. On the "french" doors, you remove the part on the ends of the doors (where the two doors come together). On the bottom drawer, you remove the top piece of molding and slide the panel down.

1. One way is to get a piece of 1/8" plywood and cut it to fit into the grooves (height and width). Attach this to the raised panel (centered on the panel) with spacers of at least 1/16". You have to allow for the 1/16" end of the groove. Then slide the panel in and re-attach the end piece of metal molding.

2. (This is what I did) Get a piece of 1/4" plywood and cut it to size that it would fit into the grooves. You can't slide 1/4" plywood into the 1/4" grooves - it's too tight. I then chamfered (a long chamfer of about an inch) the edges all around on the plywood so that the edge of the chamfer was about 1/8". I slid this into the grooves to test fit. After removing it, I attached the plywood to the raised panel (centered) with the chamfer facing the raised panel so that there's a space between the plywood and the raised panel. Slide this into the grooves and replace the end piece of metal molding.

3. Use a 1/8" slot cutter and cut a slot on the back edges of the raised panel, leaving about a 1/8" lip on the raised panel. Slide the raised panel into the grooves and replace the end piece of metal molding. This is the least attractive because it requires the raised panel to be the right size. If the raised panel is too large you can cut a rabbet around the raised panel before doing the slot cutter. Any mistake could be disastrous. A mistake with the plywood would simply require making a new piece of plywood. Also, the 1/8" lip would be weak and could be broken off while installing. This is not a good approach and I only include it for completeness, and because a woodworking friend told me he did one like this.

Compared to making the panels, attaching them was easy.

Mike

[Mike Henderson]

Hi Mike,
Beautiful piece of work, love the figured grain and the handles look great, almost like you went out in the woods and picked up a couple of sticks. It's no wonder that your happy with it.
Chet

Thanks. My wife picked the handles. They're called "Aspen twig pulls (item M1358)" and they're made by a company called "Top Knobs". The mounting screws are 12" center to center.

The screws they give you are designed for 3/4" material. So I drilled the holes from the front then used a Forstner bit to drill a bigger hole through the plywood so that the screws were only going through the raised panel wood.

Also, I don't know if others use this same approach but I got a screw of the same size and threads and ground the head off and into a point. When mounting the handles, I screwed the pointed screw into one end of the handle with the pointed end out (leave enough sticking out so that you can grab it to remove it later). Then I attached the handle through the hole I drilled through the raised panel (on the other end of the handle). Align the handle to the position where you want it and rap the end with the pointed screw. This leaves a mark where you need to drill the other hole.

Remove pointed screw, drill hole and then attach the handle. Holes lined up perfectly for me.

There must be other ways of making these holes accurately - how do you do them?

Mike

[Here's a picture of the pointed screw I used:]

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[John TenEyck]

+1 for Top Knobs. For those who didn't know about them look them up when you need quality pulls or knobs.

John

[Steve Peterson]

Those look great. I dread the day that we have to replace our fridge and I have to try to match the finish on the rest of the kitchen cabinets.

Steve

[Mike Henderson]

Those look great. I dread the day that we have to replace our fridge and I have to try to match the finish on the rest of the kitchen cabinets.

Steve

Not just the finish, but the profiles. In our kitchen, I didn't have router bits with the same profile as the rest of the cabinets but the refrigerator more-or-less stands alone so I could use profiles that are close but not exactly the same. The rest of our kitchen is natural cherry so matching the finish (once the cherry darkens) was easy.

Mike

[I'll add this picture for John T. - I took this picture without a flash and I think it shows the amount of gloss better than the first picture I put in this thread. After I took this picture I rubbed the panels down with mineral oil and extremely fine steel wool to knock down the shine a bit. Also, to remove a few dust nubs that got into the finish.]

[Also, I think Jim Becker once commented that your wood selection has a major influence on the final product - and I'd very much agree with him. I was fortunate to be able to find this figured cherry at regular cherry prices.]

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[Michelle Rich]

WOW stunning