Has anyone made tambour doors with the Amana router bit set?

[Lex Boegen]

I am in the planning and design phase of new cabinets for my kitchen. I am considering tambour doors because I can't hit my head on them, and when more than one cabinet is open, they don't get in my way (flipping doors open and closed). I only know of three basic ways of making tambour doors: a glued canvas backing on the slats, drilled holes in the slats to thread a thin cable through, and a specialty set of router bits that creates a locking joint that is a distant cousing of tounge and groove.

The first two methods don't hold a lot of appeal for me--too much of a PITA. The router bits are expensive though, and I can see that there are a couple of limitations: the finished slat is of a very specific size (no variation permitted) and there is some short grain in the joint, so I am curious about the strength of the slats and their durability. Not much point in doing all that work (and expense) if they split apart after some use. Of course I realize that depends in part on the wood chosen.

Thanks in advance for any help and guidance that you can offer.

[Mike Zipparo]

I haven't used the Amana set, but I have made them from a bunch of other bits that I have. This was before the Amana set was available. I remember using the TS to start the groove, and a ball bit to finish off the inside. Also small roundovers and a lot of sanding. Mine was for a roll top in white oak and it has proven to be very durable. An article in FWW was my inspiration and guide.
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Mike

[Jerome Hanby]

Looks like a lot of operations, mill the stock, two passes on each side with one bit, a saw cut along each edge to hog out for the ball bit, a pass over the ball bit for each edge, then split the piece in half with he saw to make two pieces. If you had two router tables and a table saw setup, these might not be too bad to make. Otherwise, with my luck, I'd come up two pieces short and spend half a day getting the router bit heights dialed back in to make the additional pieces. I wonder how difficult it would be to run really long pieces? If you could go through all that milling, then chop them into three pieces that could speed things up. If you needed 3 foot pieces and had 10 foot stock each run would make 6 pieces...