Cabinet Door Frame Joints

Biscuit joiners allow you to make solid precise joints accurate enough to build fine cabinets.

Cabinet door frame joints.

Begin with the right cabinet dimensions. However with the many varied types of wood joinery a woodworker has a number of different joints in his arsenal from which to choose based on the project. But traditionally the strongest wood joint has been a mortise and tenon including both a blind tenon and a through tenon. The 3 4 plywood case eliminates panel jointing planing and glue ups.

Wood joinery is one of the most basic concepts in woodworking if we didn t have the ability to join two pieces of wood together in a solid fashion all woodworking pieces would be sculptures carved out of a single piece of wood. These joints may be used to create frames for frame and panel doors for dust webs or drawer supports and even in basic furniture framing such as legs and rails for tables and chairs. Building shaker cabinet doors is only part of the story. In this three part episode mike builds a drawer for the cabinet taking you through his ever methodical methods for perfect half blind dovetails.

Making outside corners on door and window trim and creating decorative frames. To even up the ends of the door cut 1 16 in. Clearly this test shows that the mortise tenon joint is superior to other joints. Using the straightforward process detailed here you can crank out great looking doors for many applications including furniture cabinets and built ins.

Making the door frame. From each end using the table saw. Overlaps on the sides let you fine tune the cabinet width during installation. For tight miter joints that fit snugly leaving no visible gaps use a miter saw a specialized.

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. The door for mike pekovich s wall cabinet quickly comes together as mike creates the frame with stub tenons and grooves at the tablesaw. The trick to successful biscuit joinery is cutting the slots in. Face frames cover plywood edges.

Euro or cup hinges are the easiest most forgiving means of hanging your new cabinet doors. Dado 559 lbs force screws did not help. You also have to hang them. Biscuit miter joint 220 lbs force.

For a mortise tenon joint the wood failed but not the joint. Frame and panel doors add class to any project but they don t have to add a lot of assembly time. It took 4 733 lbs force nearly 2 1 2 tons to pull apart.