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Thread: Simple siding cabinet door question

  1. #1

    Simple siding cabinet door question

    I'm building a cabinet and want to have a pair of sliding doors on it. For reasons I won't bother going into, I'm making said doors out of the cabinet material alone (ie. no hardware). Suffice to point out this is shop storage, not fine furniture. I'd like some thoughts on which of two designs I should use. And I apologize in advance for inaccurate or inadequate terminology.

    Option 1: rout a groove/dado into the frame of the cabinet (top and bottom) and cut a tenon along the entire top and bottom of the doors slightly than more narrow the groove (or add a strip of hardwood slightly more narrow than the groove/dado onto the bottom of the door) to slide in the groove.

    Option 2: cut a groove in the top and bottom of the door edges and tack strip of hardwood to the top and bottom of the cabinet frame to slide into the grooves in the door edges.

    I'm leaving out a fair amount of detail for simplicity sake. I'm just wondering if either of these methods seems better than the other in function (not necessarily ease of manufacture).

    Cheers.

  2. #2
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    #1 , Rabbet doors top and bottom , and use hardwood , Maple , for the part that the door guide.
    Wax it occasional , and it should work well for years unless you are in a area of extreme high humidity that could seasonal swell the mating parts.

  3. #3
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    Option #3 route a small dado in the bottom of the opening and a wider one at the top. Route a small dado in the bottom of the door to hold a strip of UHMW that is 3/16-1/4" thick. Mount the UHMW in the door and let it slide in the groove in the bottom of the opening. The UHMW will let your door slide easily and will never need waxing.
    Lee Schierer
    USNA '71
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    My advice, comments and suggestions are free, but it costs money to run the site. If you found something of value here please give a little something back by becoming a contributor! Please Contribute

  4. #4
    Thanks for the advice. I'll go with 1 or 3. Cheers.

  5. #5
    OK, so I seemed to screw this up. I routed a pair of narrow dadoes in the bottom shelf (one for each door) and a matching pair for the upper shelf. The upper ones are a lot deeper but the same width. I guess I didn't read Lee's post carefully enough. I cut the doors to the size of the opening and attached the runner strip to the bottom of the door. My plan was to attach strips at the top of the doors to run in those upper dadoes. I realize now that I should have made the upper dadoes a bit wider than the door, deep enough to slide the door up into so this strip on the bottom can drop into the lower dado and cut the doors slightly larger than the opening. As it is now, there's not enough clearance on the bottom once I slide the upper part of the strip on the door (once installed). Unfortunately, it's not as simple as enlarging any of the dadoes: the shelves are built in and there are upright supports that are too close to the dadoes to allow even a trim router to pass. Any suggestions?

    You would think that as much time as I thought about this and with the advice above, I wouldn't have ended up with this problem, but here I am nevertheless. At least I'm learning, theoretically anyway.

  6. #6
    Join Date
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    Here is a possible solution. Sliding door hardware I used these on our tv cabinet and they work quite well. They might fit your existing slots.
    Lee Schierer
    USNA '71
    Go Navy!

    My advice, comments and suggestions are free, but it costs money to run the site. If you found something of value here please give a little something back by becoming a contributor! Please Contribute

  7. #7
    You could use pins to attach the bottom runner to the door. Drill the pin holes so they're able to slide just a small amount up and down, and drill the hole deep. Push the pins up into the door and place the runner in the bottom track. Put in the door and let the pins fall into the groove below.

    If you wanted to make it removable, you could cut slots into the door from the back. Not enough to poke through the front, just a little over halfway through. Use a forstner to make room for the head as well; you may also need to make some inserts for the head of the bolt.

    Thread some bolts loosely into the base runner, then lay in the door. Since it's a sliding door you can probably get to the back of it easily enough, where you could tighten down the bolts into the bolt head clearance area I mentioned.

    I hope that makes sense!

    Another option if you want to get really fancy, you could put sliding dovetails into the runner and door. Place the runners into their slots, then place the door into the sliding part opposite the runners, then slide them together. A small nail from the backside would hold them together, or a little glue if you don't need to get them apart again one day.

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