Cope/ Stick Problem w/ raised panel doors

[John Preston]

Hello all,

New to the creek, ex Ponder, been too busy to sign on here till I had an urgent problem and needed expertise.

I'm making a kitchen for a guy using his Jesada raised panel ogee bit set. I did my kitchen a couple of years ago. When I fit the cope to the stick, the bottom joint is tight, the tenon appears to be tight, but there's this danged gap on the front side where the ogees meet. My set was not as bad, but I remember this same problem

There's only a couple of ways this could happen as I see it.

1. bit set is ground wrong

2. Chop saw is not plumb

3. router table is not flat

4. operator error

5. not flat when glued up

Tried croscutting on table saw, same problem, so no #2.

I know his router table is not flat, area around bit is slightly proud of table, hmmm, that might be it, the cope is done face down, and that would bring the face closer to the cutter, possibly cutting it short. But I did get the same effect with my router table, and mine is pretty danged close to flat.

Checked glued up pieces, and they came out nice and flat, not cocked one way or the other.

Any suggestions, something that I'm missing?

[Bob Lasley]

John,

Sounds like a bad job of grinding the bits to match to me. I would suggest giving Jesada a call and see what they say. Ask to speak to their technical people and describe the problem to them.

Good luck,
Bob

[Ron Meadows]

John,

I bought a 3 piece set from Jesada a while back (preshaper days). I had all kinds of trouble with cope/stick fit. Turns out the bits were misground. A quick phone call to Jesada and another set was on its way. Problem solved.

Make sure that the ends of your stiles are square and you'll be just fine.

If you find that one part of the alignment, be it the tongue, back, or front there are shims available (usually provided in the set) to shim the bits for exact fit.

Hope this helps,

Ron Meadows

[Hal Flynt]

Not positive which bits you have.

On mine, I run all the bead and grooves face up and the copes face down. If all the stock isn't the exact same thickness, then you will have ofsets.

Now when you said a gap, did you mean a space like the tongue was too long or faces not on the same plane? If a gap, are you getting a full depth cut? Table tilted from 90 degrees?

If the gap is larger at one end than the other check the cope piece for square before and after the cut. If different, you may be less than 90 degrees when cutting the cope.

I try to visualize how I would position the stock to correct the cut and see what that could lead too.

It could be a bad grind, I would run 2 pieces of identical scrap at least 6 inches long, one on the cope and the other on the stick and see how they fit. If they don't fit, it's most likely the bit.

[John Christiansen]

Hello all,


I'm making a kitchen for a guy using his Jesada raised panel ogee bit set. I did my kitchen a couple of years ago. When I fit the cope to the stick, the bottom joint is tight, the tenon appears to be tight, but there's this danged gap on the front side where the ogees meet. My set was not as bad, but I remember this same problem

John,

This is probably not going to help much, but I had the same problem with mine. They too, were Jesada, but that didn't turn out to be the reason.

I played around with the shims for quite some time one evening and simply by "magic", I got things working perfectly.

Here's where I'm not much help. I can't tell you what I did. It was over a year ago. And the truth be known, I probably couldn't recount the process if it was yesterday. But play with those shims. Look at the bits and try to figure out what needs to be added or taken away to tighten things up without loosening something else, too badly.

[Todd Burch]

If I were experiencing this problem, I would take both bits to my sharpener and have him mount them in his optical comparator to digitally check the grind.

Todd.