Fitting Cabinet Doors
I’m closing in on the end of construction of my vanity cabinets. With the cases assembled I was faced with the task of fitting the doors. I tried to think of a way to show this process in a photo sequence but, I’m afraid, I failed miserably. Most of the process is mental and my camera doesn’t do well at recording that stuff. And so I’m left with some babbling that will have to suffice. Apologies in advance.
I prefer to build the doors first when building cabinets. I figure if I can get square and true doors, and build to those doors I’ll end up with a decent cabinet. I know others who prefer case first construction and they don’t suffer for it. But when I build my doors, I build them just a wee bit wider and taller than the cabinet they’re going to fit. “Wee” is defined as 1/32″ to 1/16″ wider/taller.
And so, because these particular cabinets have top and bottom overhangs, the doors don’t fit into the space once the cases are assembled as they’re too tall. So, I start by planing the bottom style so that 1) the door can be scrunched (technical woodworking term invented by Moxon I think) into the space, 2) that the hinge side of the door aligns with the cabinet, and 3) that the door bottom is parallel to the bottom of the cabinet, like this:
This generally shows me what must be done on the top of the door to get the top to fit. Below you can see where the door is hitting the top of the cabinet (circled).
Because the bottom and hinge side are in proper alignment, it’s easy to mark what has to be removed to achieve proper top/bottom fit. The resultant top gap should be twice the desired gap as this gap represents both the top and bottom door gaps.
Doing this with hand planes is really easy as you simply mark the area to be removed and plane down to the line you’ve drawn. Because you must plane across the end grain of the rail a sharp blade and a fine cut are required.
Here are the cabinets in their current state. It’s an example of “Clients – you can’t live with ‘em and you can’t live without ‘em.” In this case, the client is my wife, Chantal. She’s been fairly passive about this project thus far, mostly because most times, when I show her something I’ve built that isn’t a shop thingie, it has left our house and resides elsewhere.
I think I caught her by surprise to finish something to stay in our home. When I wiped down the cabinets with mineral spirits so she could get a feel for what they’ll look like, she got excited…i.e. involved.
“Wouldn’t it be neat to have some engraving on the mirrors?”, she said.
“Sure, remember the SketchUp drawings and the trim pattern I proposed? Maybe we could have it engraved on the mirrors”, I said.
“I was thinking more like flowers and leaves”, she said.
“Oooookay… the only requirements for that are that you give me 1/4″ perimeter around the mirrors that will be hidden behind the door frame AND, that you negotiate whatever you want with the glass company.”, I said.
And the cabinets sit in the corner of my shop. She has all the dimensions and the cabinets I’m waiting for their flowery faces as she investigates the possiblity. I’m pondering my blue tape approach to hinging and latching. It may not hold up.
Cheers — Larry
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You can also get a glass etching kit from a local craft store.
That’s a great idea, Jay, and I went out this morning looking for such a kit as I’ve found them readily available from various places on planet Earth. Sadly, here on planet Quebec City, however, no such thing seems available. Besides, I’m a woodworker, not a glass etcher so I’ll leave that to my wife. Thanks for your insight.
Cheers — Larry
Looking great Larry! Are the shelves going to be glass too, or are they wood?
I’m sort of torn about the shelves, Bob. As a woodworker I prefer wood shelves but the pragmatics of these being bathroom cabinets shout ‘use glass’ shelves. I have a bunch of glass shelves on the spec sheet I gave to Chantal.
Cheers — Larry
I’m with you on the wood, but I agree, glass just makes more sense here. Bath vanity shelves seem to get all matters of things spilled and dried to them (well at least mine do
). I think glass will be easier to remove and clean in this case.
That’s my way of thinking about this as well. Concessions to location like polyurethane and glass shelves sort of make me cringe a bit but I’m just trying to be practical.
Cheers — Larry