I'm thinking of adding a couple of doors to a shop cabinet. One thought I had was simply to install hinges, and cut the door out of a piece of 5/8 or
3/4 plywood. If I install the hinges first, then I don't have to mess with holding the door in place after it's cut. (I'll remove the hinges to cut it.)A jigsaw would probably be used to make the cuts, it'll give me a smooth and square finish.
Would this work, or do I need to cut the door out first?
Puckdropper
Might work. Give it a try. If you don't like the results you can always make a real door out of some more plywood.
What a wonderful Idea! Or even better, hang the door then cut out a hole to match it.
I usually just use a straight board held to the cabinet with spring clamps. This gives me a ledge to set the door on while I position it and screw the hinges to the case (I fasten the hinges to the door before installing the door).
For cabinets that don't have anything to grip to, I often use spacer blocks from the trim below or whatever.
Anthony
LOL ...
the only problem with this method, and i've only used it on fence gates, not cabinets, is that the hinges will not be pre loaded, and thus the door (gate) drops a bit when you cut it out. If you can figure out a way to offset this slack, then it'll work fine.
Aren't you a bit late? Like 26 days? Art
"Artemus" wrote in news:jnevk1$jsc$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:
Nothing humourous was meant... I want to cut the doors right out of the same piece of ply used for the rest of the cabinet, and thought mounting the hinges first and then removing them before cutting the door out would make assembly easier.
Plus, the spacing around the door would be equal on all sides, since it's just a saw kerf wide.
Just wanted to ask before I took all the time to set this up and cut the pieces out. When it seems this easy, it's often a good idea to ask about "gotchas".
Puckdropper
Put a slight angle on the blade and you'll get a built in stop.
The "gotcha" with a jig saw is a "start point", for the first cut, and at each corner ... you normally have to drill a hole in order to start the cut, which ruins either door (cutoff), or the frame around the door.
What you want to do is known as a "plunge cut". There are a couple of ways to do this with a circular saw, and a guide rail with built in "stops", also best done with the circular blade at full extension. You can then use a jig saw to cut to the corners cleanly.
Hate to mention it, but I use a Festool TS75 to do this very thing for making doors and windows for chicken coops:
Better shot of the plunge cut setup in case you can't scroll to it:
Keep six of them around all the time, all the same height no matter which side up ... the uses to which they can be put is limited only by imagination.
Worth giving up a bit of limited shop space many times over.
I think I even have Leon making some now. ;)
Wow. pretty nice for a bunch of chickens.
LOL ... never when it comes to doing things for other people and expecting to be paid for it.
Thanks ... gotta admit that the few folks I make them for are convinced their hens (all with names) deserve only the best. :0>
And, I hate to be called back before twenty years from date of purchase.
I wish I could attribute it to being observant. I think I'm just too anal. :-) Seriously, I find I often get too caught up in the process instead of the results. Not that the results suffer, but it often makes the process less enjoyable. So when I look at a picture of something someone made, my brain tends to gravitate towards "how did he do that and would it make my process more efficient?" before actually admiring the product.
Yeah, they're pretty cool, + considerably lighter than steel I-beams. Do you wax them to keep finishes from sticking?
-- You never hear anyone say, 'Yeah, but it's a dry cold.' -- Charles A. Budreau
I have actually seen people do a plunge cut with a jig saw, but I wouldn't want to try it on 3/4" plywood.
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