How to make divided light cabinet doors?

[David F. Eisan]

Hello everyone,

I have googled "divided light" cabinet doors and come up empty.

I have no idea on how to make divided light cabinet doors. I have both the Freud recoverable bead cabinet door set and the CMT Lonnie Bird divided light cabinet door set with instructions, but both are very vague on how to actually make divided light cabinet doors.

I am looking to make 2 over 3 divided light cabinet doors that will test the test of time.

Has anyone actually used either to make divided light cabinet doors?

I am having great difficulty trying to figure out either set.

If anyone has actually made 2 over 3 cabinet doors with either set, I would really like to hear from you,

Thanks,

David.

[noonenparticular]

Look for American Woodworker, Issue 115; July 2005. Has an excellent article by Tom Casper. I used it (with the freud set) and made 5 five foot tall, 8 lite doors without a hitch.

jc

[Swingman]

Popular Woodworking, November 2005, page 100.

[Leon]

What exactly is your question here David? What part has you stumped? I find it is really no different than making regular doors with a single piece of glass other than adding other pieces inside the perimeter of rails and stiles.

[noonenparticular]

Leon,

I agree it's not much more difficult than regular raised panel door, but there is the extra step of cutting the mortises for the muntins and rails that doesn't need to be performed with a typical R&S construction. Or, at least that was the case with the bit set I used ;-)

jc

[David Eisan]

Leon,

The part that has me stumped is how to handle the intersection/overlap of the muntin bars. In a two over three cabinet door I don't want to 5 separate bars, I want three. In my mind I cannot figure out how to do a half lap, it seems like an impossible joint/puzzle with profiled bars. I don't want just a butt cope joint at the intersections, I would rather have the bars go from side to side, top to bottom. I plan on mortising the rail and stile and I am going to do the same with the muntin bars into the rail and stile as well. I want a strong door.

Did I explain myself well enough that you understand my dilemma?

Thanks,

David.

[Leon]

I must be missing something here, LOL. I use rail and stile router bits for this operation and find that simply cutting the required extra pieces and taking into consideration the length that will be lost and gained when fitting the muntins and rails is the only difference in procedure other than having to route both sides of the inner pieces.

As a hint, I do cut the inner pieces a tad longer and sneak up on the length for a proper fit.

[noonenparticular]

David,

In the AW article I referenced, this joint is handled as such:

- the horizontal muntin ends act as tenons (as they do in "normal" cope and stick doors)

- the verticle muntins have a through mortise cut through them.

- the tenons on the horizontal pieces are shortened by ~ 1/16". This way they *almost* meet in the center of the through mortise

The resulting joint(s) are quite strong. The doors I built were incredibly strong as there were 17 M&T's in each one.

jc

[Leon]

OK, I see your situation here. I have never done half lap intersections but have seen illustrations of this procedure and it is indeed some what complicated compared to simply making more of the same joints that you use to make the outer frame of the piece. That said, I always make the same joints that I do for the framing rail and stile members. I find that with all that exposed surface that the joint is plenty strong.

Experiment with simply building a test piece with the joints all fitting as they would on a normal rail and stile door. I think you will find that the strength is adequate. The nuntins are going to add a lot of support to the inner rails.

Good Luck and if you end up doing the half lap procedure please take lots of pictures.

[Juergen Hannappel]

It is not. Half-Lap the unprofiled part of the profile, miter the profiled parts. "The Complete Woodworker" has a picture of thet.