Making A Panel Face Frame Door

The style i picked is a simple frame and panel with the frame made from solid maple.

Making a panel face frame door.

I built my cabinet doors with simple frames and floating panels as in the panels float inside the frame. With all of the upper cabinets for my kitchen made and installed i moved on to making the cabinet doors. Using the straightforward process detailed here you can crank out great looking doors for many applications including furniture cabinets and built ins. Frame and panel doors add class to any project but they don t have to add a lot of assembly time.

The first step in making a door is taking measurements. A main function of a face frame is to hide the exposed plywood laminations. Frame and panel construction also called rail and stile is a woodworking technique often used in the making of doors wainscoting and other decorative features for cabinets furniture and homes the basic idea is to capture a floating panel within a sturdy frame as opposed to techniques used in making a slab solid wood cabinet door or drawer front the door is constructed of several. The back half of the door is inset while the front half is overlaid on the face frame.

It lines up flush with the face of the frame and leave space behind for the 1 2 plywood. Doors should generally be around 1 8 to 3 16 smaller than the frame. Frames use 3 4 thick stock with 1 4 panels in various materials and veneers a general purpose saw blade will do the job although. Making the face frame run past all the plywood edges provides a little wiggle room and hides not so perfect saw cuts on the plywood.

This rabbet allows the door to sit into the cabinet face frame. Make a jig for a half lap joint. A slight angle on the rabbet ensures an easy fit. This decorative treatment has the added advantage of creating a fairly tight seal on cabinet doors reducing dust.

Now that you ve got the technique down for creating half lap joinery try your hand at using half lap joints to create the frame for a glass panel door or mirror. There are a million ways to make a door but this method is fairly simple and worked with the tools i already had. How to make frame and panel cabinet doors home improvement. A face frame does a better job of this if it overlaps the box edges a bit.

Learn how to make simple face frame upper and lower cabinets including doors and drawers. Https ibuildit ca projects how to make frame and panel cabinet doors here are some ways that you can help su. Cut dadoes in cabinet door frames. You can make beautiful flush corners with a dado head cutter on your table saw.

Check out the build article for more details.