Pie safe tins

[Aaron Kline]

I'm looking to make a pie safe or such soon and got a question. How do you hold the tins in the door frame? Rabbet, groove,etc? Thanks

[Bill Webber]

I did a couple kitchen cabinet doors that way. I simply cut a rabbit for the metal and held it in place with small quarter round.

HTH

Bill W.

[Steve Clardy]

You can rabbit, and use glass points to hold it in also.

[Steve Beadle]

I just finished a pie safe for my sister. Here is a picture of the inside of the door. Perhaps it is clear enough to see that I set the panels in a rabbet and then added mitered strips (pre-drilled for the brads, to avoid splits). It might have been a better idea to use small screws, so that if I ever need to remove a panel I can do so easily.

[Frank Fusco]

Under the FWIW category. The cabinets with pierced tin fronts, according to some knowledgable historians, are not 'pie safes' at all. A pie safe is a small counter-top item with three or four shelves just big enough to hold pies, it may or may not have a screen or pierced tin front. The cabinets commonly called pie safes are really ventilated bug-proof storage for dairy products. They were made by a company named Thomas Pye and Sons. The original designs in the pierced tin changed every year and an original cabint can be dated by the design. This was told to me by a museum curator. I don't claim to be the expert.