A "how would I do this" question

[Jeff Ranck]

I've been making some swing out doors for my new downstairs shop in a home we are remodeling. The basic door plan comes from a FWW article. I'm going to put some door seal at the bottom to help with weather tightness. The door seal requires two grooves about 1/8" (or a saw kerf for a rotary blade) spaced apart as I've shown in the graphic below (partial mockup of the door). I cut the grooves in the bottom piece before I glued the doors together. However, now I need to continue them on the ends of the door (e.g., the long, 8 foot-ish side part - whatever you call it: it would be a stile in a frame panel). I can't stand the door on end unless I want to try to climb a ladder and work on it 8 feet in the air. So that leaves laying it flat to work on it.

So would you try to saw them? Use a router plane with a fence (like the verities one)? Use something like the verities small plow plane/stanly 45 and just work on it sideways?

[Al Launier]

Router slot cutter?

[Scott T Smith]

why don't you build a simple little wood moulding plane with a steel insert to cut the slot?

[Sean Hughto]

[Bill Huber]

I think I would try and do it on the table saw, you could set the fence hit 4 of the ends and then reset the fence and get the other 4.
With a set of feather boards to hold it against the fence and I think you would be fine, you only have to make the cut as long as the rail is wide.
The thing that would worry me about a router bit is tear out of the end grain.

[Sean Hughto]

The thing that would worry me about a router bit is tear out of the end grain.

Clamp, tape, hot glue, etc. a waste block to the end and let it suffer the blow out.

[David Weaver]

How deep are the grooves? I'd scratch them out with a scratch stock and clean up ends with a 1/8" chisel if I didn't want to use a slotting cutter in a router. If they don't have to look power tool perfect (and I can't imagine why they would have to), that's the way I'd go.

Something that narrow and shallow could also pretty easily be mortised by hand, though that too will take a little bit of time.

[Brian Holcombe]

Something standing 8' high on a table saw seems pretty dangerous IMO.

I like the router idea, with a block on the end to control blow-out.

Router planes are not great at long straight lines, a plow plans is more optimal for that.

[David Weaver]

For some reason, it didn't occur to me that this is a through groove and not a stopped groove. I'd definitely use a slot cutter on a router. A plow plane would work, but if the groove has to be 2 or 3 times its width in depth, it'll be pretty undesirable trying to plow it to depth - especially on a surface tilted 90 degrees from normal.

[Richard Shaefer]

I'd use a biscuit jointer and just run it sideways across the door.
It's what I did for my doors

[Bill Huber]

Something standing 8' high on a table saw seems pretty dangerous IMO.

I like the router idea, with a block on the end to control blow-out.

Router planes are not great at long straight lines, a plow plans is more optimal for that.

I agree, I was thinking it was the other way, not the long one.

[Jeff Ranck]

I think the router slot bit may be the best idea. The depth is not a lot. the slot is about 1/8" wide and about 1/4" or so deep.

[Jim Koepke]

I think the router slot bit may be the best idea. The depth is not a lot. the slot is about 1/8" wide and about 1/4" or so deep.

It is likely the easiest depending on what tooling you have on hand.

Next would be a plow plane. The fence could actually ride along the top surface as a guide.

A circular saw could also be set up with a fence if you have a wide enough blade or make a couple of passes.

It is things like this that still get me when my project is not planned properly. My enthusiasm is strong enough to drive me ahead of myself.

jtk

[Federico Mena Quintero]

I'd stand the door on the long skinny side, clamp it to one side of the workbench, and chisel+mallet down until I meet the original groove. The groove will be hidden, anyway, so it won't matter if it is not as clean/straight as the original one.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

I'd stand the door on the long skinny side, clamp it to one side of the workbench, and chisel+mallet down until I meet the original groove. The groove will be hidden, anyway, so it won't matter if it is not as clean/straight as the original one.

That would be my approach. Scribe things first with a gauge, maybe deepen with a knife, and should be quick work with a stout enough chisel. Only caveat may be that these stiles are too long for a chisel to work in this approach, so you may need to tackle it from the ends, working into the end grain rather than across it, which may take longer.

My first thought would have been tempted to attach some long-grain strips to the bottom of the door, simply to make machining these slots easier, and get the end grain away from potential moisture sources, but that's just at a thought, and something I would look into before approaching the project that way, because there's probably a reason not to that I'm missing. (Obviously, not something that works great in your case, with the door already constructed.)