Since the last update on this job, I have been working on the drawer fronts and doors. I decided to go with a simple frame and panel door with the panel being 1/4 in plywood. I would love to do a raised panel in this job, but time and budget restraints being considered, plywood panels seem the logical fit.
Since I am doing a flat panel, I felt like waking up the design a little bit by doing an arch top on the upper cabinet doors. I cut all the upper rails at 3 1/2 inches compared to 2 1/2 inches for all the other rails and stiles. Since I have a wide variety of door widths, I needed a set up to cut the arches at different radii. Also, the particular router bit I have has a bearing on top and does not make contact with the piece being routed in the set up I chose. So I knew I needed a template to stick onto the piece being routed for the bearing to ride against.
I could have constructed a jig with nails or screws and a flexible strip, but I decided to just calculate the radius of the piece by a simple formula and then use a beam compass to strike the arc. I wanted a very small flat on each end where the rail meets the stile, so I decided to leave 3/8 in on each end. That makes the total width of the arc 3/4 in less than the width of the rail. I also knew that I wanted the height of the cut to be 1 1/2 inches from the bottom of the rail to the top of the cut. With this info, I used the formula:
where H = height of cut (all 1.5 in my case) and W = width of the arc (all my widths varied). As I said, there are several ways to do this, but being the math geek that I am, this is the way that felt right for me.
I calculated all the radii with this formula and then proceeded to cut some mdf scrap into parts sized identically to the arched rails. I then marked the two end points as well as the center point 1 1/2 inches up and used my shop made beam compass to strike the arc. After striking the arc, it was off to the band-saw and then the oscillating spindle sander to cut and then fair out the arch on the template pieces.
With all the arches cut on the upper doors, it was just a matter of routing the cope and stick profiles on the router table. The straight pieces were straightforward, but I had to use a template on the arches. I simply double stick taped the mdf templates I had made and routed them using a starting pin.
After the rails and stiles were all done, the 1/4 in plywood panels were cut to rough size and then the arch was transferred to the panel via the templates and cut out on the band-saw. I think they turned out very nice and you can see what they look like in the photo below.
Next it’s a whole lotta sanding and scraping followed by staining/finishing ( I finally get to use my hvlp system on a project ). One thing I have realized with this project is that my next tool will be an open ended drum sander. I just cringe knowing how long all these parts are going to take to sand versus how quickly I could knock them out with a drum sander…
Dry fit of one of the completed doors
Dry fit of one of the tall door frames
Template routing the arches
Router table setup for the straight pieces
Cleaning up the curves on the spindle sander
Cutting the templates on the bandsaw
Striking the arcs with a shop made beam compass
Rails and stiles all laid out on the out feed table
Drawer fronts
