Mission style cabinet doors on a Shaper

[Mike Kees]

My question is how others here accomplish these doors. I have used solid braised cutters from Freeborn, an adjustable set from Amana with replaceable carbide cutters and one of my adjustable groovers with a rabbeting head( cut one side of tenon at a time.) I have been thinking of investing in two straight tenon disks the same diameter to stack and cut both sides at once (tenons). What is the thinking on my idea ? Anything I am missing ? I have corg heads and two euro blocks available as well. Maybe I could just get another rabbeting head the same size as one of the two I have as well. Thinking of stacking with spacers and shims to get my thickness right. What would be my best option ?

[Richard Coers]

One mission style I would just use mortise and tenon and forget a matched shaper cutter set.

[Jeff Roltgen]

I enjoy the Freeborn insert style - I just like the radiused corners.
Best option is to use what you have, in the interest of money saving. Since shifting to the insert style, I will be sticking with it.

[brent stanley]

My question is how others here accomplish these doors. I have used solid braised cutters from Freeborn, an adjustable set from Amana with replaceable carbide cutters and one of my adjustable groovers with a rabbeting head( cut one side of tenon at a time.) I have been thinking of investing in two straight tenon disks the same diameter to stack and cut both sides at once (tenons). What is the thinking on my idea ? Anything I am missing ? I have corg heads and two euro blocks available as well. Maybe I could just get another rabbeting head the same size as one of the two I have as well. Thinking of stacking with spacers and shims to get my thickness right. What would be my best option ?

Hi Mike,

I have a few tenon disc options, but I actually have two smaller diameter discs (175mm) on the way to let me do up to 51mm tenons as you describe. Lets me do it inside my standard shaper fences and means I don't have to change it out. There's no reason why you can't do very short tenons with that set-up too, such as what you would find with coped and sticked kitchen cabinet doors. These will give you very square corners, and the adjustable groovers will give you very sharp corners too, which can make it harder to get together, harder to fit the panel in, and depending on what you are doing for finishing, the sharp corner can cause a problem. But that combination will give you infinite flexibility to deal with odd panel thicknesses and make longer than normal tenons/grooves for more glue surface area. For me, these discs will also be my go to for furniture and some sash tenons as I can run them with conventional fences.

If you're doing a lot, a dedicated insert set that permits adjusting the groove for odd panel thicknesses might be a good idea. It will give you a gentle radius for the edge of the groove as well as the ends of the stub tenon and of course will last forever with the replaceable tips.

Knives in the Euroblock are of course a possibility and might be cheapest in the short term, but don't have the same longevity and offer almost no flexibility for odd panel sizes. I don't do enough mission doors (and hope not to in the future!) so can't justify dedicated heads, so have used knives in a limiter head with excellent results. They're good for piles of doors before they dull, are actually quite quick to set up, but will use stacked discs fairly often in the future.

Depending on what shop I'm in and what the other machines are set up for, I will also use my adjustable groover reversed with spacers between the components to make a short tenon. Works well but not all manufacturers recommend it so, good to check.

Any approach that permits milling of the entire edge of the components when doing sticking means you can use an outboard/back fence to bring components down to final width which is a nice feature I would value if doing a lot.

Cheers,

Brent

[Paul Haus]

You can either create your own set or buy some already assembled sets. Simple tongue and groove setup.

[Mike Kees]

Brent thanks for the detailed reply. The 175mm disks are kind of what I was thinking of. Also thought that I would buy common diameter but two different cutting heights to make owning them more versatile yet. Thinking like 3/4'' and 1/2'' maybe ? I am doing this work for a living so completely understand what mission doors are and how to build them. I am about 100 or so doors into this so far and have made do and tried a couple different set ups. The groove part is figured out. Need a repeatable, adjustable (thickness) way to do the tenon portion of the rails . I have determined that I do prefer 5/8'' deep tenons on cabinet doors ,for glue surface and helping to keep doors flat during glue up. Cost is a consideration but I will spend to get the right solution.

[brent stanley]

Brent thanks for the detailed reply. The 175mm disks are kind of what I was thinking of. Also thought that I would buy common diameter but two different cutting heights to make owning them more versatile yet. Thinking like 3/4'' and 1/2'' maybe ? I am doing this work for a living so completely understand what mission doors are and how to build them. I am about 100 or so doors into this so far and have made do and tried a couple different set ups. The groove part is figured out. Need a repeatable, adjustable (thickness) way to do the tenon portion of the rails . I have determined that I do prefer 5/8'' deep tenons on cabinet doors ,for glue surface and helping to keep doors flat during glue up. Cost is a consideration but I will spend to get the right solution.

Having the different height would be a good idea as it allows you to do a tenon offset on thicker stock and still be able to do the higher shoulder with the thicker of the two discs.....good idea. I think I'd be leaning towards the double, mid sized discs. You're probably doing enough to justify a set, but that would include the groove which you don't need. Also, not all of those sets will let you do 5/8" tenon I discovered. Another groover sandwiched in between the two discs opens up the possibility of double tenons if you ever wanted to down the line.

[Mike Kees]

Thanks Brent. It takes a while to think "shaper" . Starting to think more in multiples and stacking cutters. I have two shapers so will now set up to do both cuts on the two machines. Handy to be able to leave setups until I am sure that I will not need any more matching profiles cut.

[Phillip Mitchell]

Mike,

Is this on your RS-15 or a different shaper? I have wanted to have a setup like this on my “little” T100 but I don’t think I could/should go bigger than ~225mm cutting circle due to limited RPM (can’t go lower than 6k.)

Let us know what you decide to go with.

[Mike Kees]

I will probably run the double tenon set up on my Minimax, because it has the sliding table as well as a fence that fits the sliding table. I have used this machine to cut all my tenons so far. Minimax is a T50 (I think) with a sliding table and tilt spindle, 1 1/4'' 5h.p. single phase. Just looked at my RS15 today and it's slow speed is 2800 rpm. I think Minimax goes down to 3000 rpm . Pretty much stays set at 6000 90% of the time. I will most likely stay at 170-180mm diameter. Thanks for asking me this as I need to check the Minimax for max diameter that I can run with it's fence.

[Joe Calhoon]

Mike, there are many ways to do these. Square edge - Shaker- Mission has been the go to here for 25 or more years. Way back we used braised carbide groovers and stacked straight cutters for the stub tenon. I would avoid single sided tenons especially if you are in business. It is a painful process with a lot of variables. For a long time we used stacking Felder-Stark 125mm Z2 rebate heads for the cope or a smallish tenon if desired. Those used to go on sale in the Christmas catalog fairly inexpensive. Their fixing system is not great and you have to be careful changing the inserts because a little miss alignment will show up when assembling. Otherwise decent cutters for the price. I bet the Freeborn inserts Jeff mentioned are good. Never tried any of their inserts but they were always my favorite for braised tooling.

Nowdays I usually use my 160mm diameter Garniga Multiuse for the stub tenon or true tenon up to 50mm and a adjustable groover for the slot. The adjustable groovers are a simple setup but only effective if you have a clean edge on your S4S material to start with. All mine come off Tersa heads and are as clean as any insert shaper cutter. If your planer is lacking you will be better off with a sticking cut that takes the whole edge with either the split fence or outboard fence.

Back when we did whole house projects with cabinets and doors I had Garniga make a sticking set on sleeve that could do doors from cabinet size up to 68mm thick entry’s. It is a nice set that I still use a lot and will radius the panel groove and outside edges if desired with 2 setting for depth. The radius on the panel groove is nice but also don’t mine sharp and crisp there and have never had problems assembling these if the fit is careful. For cabinets I run this one on the outboard fence and house doors with a well tuned split fence. This cutter makes a exceptionally good edge with the razor sharp shear cutting inserts. I still find myself using just a adjustable groover a lot because of the simple setup.
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Whatever method I use I like having the groove to be adjustable.
lately I have been doing cabinets for myself with through tenons. None of my 160mm diameter cutters would do a tenon that deep in 2 1/2” stiles and had to use 250mm disks for the tenon. All my shapers will take 250 inside the fence and used the bolt on sliding table to cut the tenons.
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Another cutter you might take a look at is Rangate’s bevel Shaker set. We use that in the Alpine courses and it is a nice set. The bevel is slight and clean with a stub tenon that is fairly deep and probably does not need reinforcement with dowel or Domino. I do anyway but that is just me. It Has a door thickness range of about 19 to 25mm. One big advantage of the bevel is you do not have to ease the inside edge by hand after assembly and wide belt sanding.
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[Rod Sheridan]

Hi Mike, I use an adjustable groover for the groove and an adjustable groover flipped inside out to cut both cheeks on the tendon in one pass.

Regards, Rod.

[brent stanley]

Mike, I would be tempted to get as large a pair of discs as you can fit into your standard fences. Typically the cost increment as you go up a diameter class is pretty small and the bigger they are the more flexible they are with respect to what you can do with them. I have 350mm diameter discs which of course require a tenoning hood, and really my objective with the smaller ones is to avoid changing out the fence/hood for just a few doors.

Years ago I had a brazed carbide set that was adjustable for different panel thicknesses and it was a bear to get set up perfectly. I probably did 10 kitchens with it and am really glad to have move on from that. I find that for production, being able to bring your stock down to final width using an outboard fence while running the sticking is faster to set up and skips a separate "widthing" step that you would otherwise have to make. Something to think about if you end up doing a lot of it down the line.

[Jared Sankovich]

I've used my 170mm 20-39mm groover to cut tenons. They work just like a set of stacked tenon disc's.

[Rod Sheridan]

I've used my 170mm 20-39mm groover to cut tenons. They work just like a set of stacked tenon disc's.

Agreed, I use a smaller groover to do the same thing…..Rod.