Decisions - decisions - what to use to make a rabbet on a door edge.

[Rich Engelhardt]

I have 5 replacement doors I have to make for a friend.
They will be used on old 1950's era cabinets.
The ones that had pine face frames and birch plywood doors that had a 1/4" rabbet on the door edge.

I have two router tables - one with a 1/4" collet 1.75 HP (Ryobi) router & the other has a Milwaukee 5625 with a 1/2" collet.
I could use a 1/4" straight bit in the Ryobi & I have a rail and stile set with a 1/2" shank that I could use in the Milwaukee.

I also have a Freud stacked dado set & a Freud box joint blade set I bought on sale years ago & never used.

I'm leaning towards the Ryobi - - only because I can haul it over to the job site & do the work onsite & make any minor adjustments on the spot.

Maybe do the initial cuts on the table saw, then fine tune the fit onsite with the Ryobi?

The Ryobi is going to the job site regardless since I'm going to use it to round over the edges of the doors......or maybe I'll take my beloved DeWalt 611PK .

Decisions decisions..

[Lee Schierer]

I made some sililar doors many years ago, you probably want to do the round over first. Then use a router table with a 1/2" or larger straight cut bit for the rabbet.

[John TenEyck]

I am always nervous about tear out when routing in the "correct" direction on the router table. So when faced with the need to make rabbets (or molded edges) where tear out is completely verboten I used a handheld router and a climb cut. You can do that either using a fence and straight bit, or with a piloted rabbeting bit. I take sequentially deep passes until reaching full width/depth, and then one last pass in the normal direction. Just an alternative you might consider.

John

[Paul Girouard]

I’d first :

Cut doors to size,
Sand to 100 grit.
Radius door edges. (Here you might use a router with a fence as often Birch ply can have voided the bearing can dip into creating divots in your raduised edges. )
Use table saw to create lipped edges. Using a dado head , elevated fence guide.
Cut the side (long grain) rabbets first , then the top and bottom (cross grain).
Use a fresh ZCI in the table saw to avoid chip out.

Many lipped doors are NOT lipped on the bottom edge , and the original builders often left the bottom “rail’s” off the cabinets , you might verify that you need to rabbet all four edges before you make the cuts.

G- luck.

[Charles Lent]

I much prefer using a router, but one mounted in a router table for this, mainly because the fence is easier to adjust and you don't need to worry about the bearing of the bit hitting a void. I would do the round over first and then the rabbet, but pay attention to how many sides need the rabbet as Paul warned in the previous post. All four edges do not always get rabbeted.

Charley

[Rich Engelhardt]

Many lipped doors are NOT lipped on the bottom edge , and the original builders often left the bottom “rail’s” off the cabinets , you might verify that you need to rabbet all four edges before you make the cuts

Correct! I already checked for that & indeed, the existing doors aren't rabbeted on the bottoms.
I told the owner to pick up a sheet of Baltic Birch - in the hopes of avoiding any voids. He'll probably just pick up a sheet of "cabinet grade" from the borg, so, there's sure to be voids. I've already made up my mind to use the smaller router table (the Ryobi) for the round over since it's a very subtle - maybe even less than the smallest (5/16") round over bit I have. I may have to resort to using my Dremel in the Dremel router table accessory I bought years ago and never used.

I did make a whole bunch of ZCI blanks for the table saw, so, I'm pretty sure that's what I'll use for the rabbets.

elevated fence guide.

? I'm not sure what you mean by that?

[Brian Holcombe]

I use a whiteside down shear mortising bit, cuts a beautiful rabbet. I use the largest the offer for most edge work and used the sized bits for dados.

I do this in a router table.