Frame and Panel approach

[Paul Incognito]

Resurrecting a forgotten thread, thanks for the search feature.
Ray, I've made lots of cabinet doors using cope and stick joints on the router table. Haven't had a door fall apart yet...
That being said, I have a question. Does anyone out there use dowels as well as cope and stick to put the rails and stiles together? Would it help to kep the door flat? I've had problems with doors twisting in the past. Maybe I just need to be more careful with gluing them up? Mortise and tennon would be nice, but I figure for production work dowels would be more efficient. Besides, I have my eye on the new Jessem jig.
TIA,
PI

[John TenEyck]

Most doweling set ups are slow and tedious to get matching holes unless you have dedicated equipment. If your door isn't flat during dry clamp up, doweling isn't going to fix the problem. Something is wrong with your stile/rail joints. Cope and stick joints seem plenty strong - I haven't had one come loose yet. But if you want extra strength, I'd recommend a loose tenon instead of dowels. The mortises are quick and easy to cut with a router and simple guide, or with an easily built horizontal router mortising table, and the tenons are easily shop made to any size required. I've made a bunch of doors this way, including some with curved rails where I couldn't figure out how else to join them.

If you want to go really cheap, you don't even need cope and stick bits to get the look. You just run whatever profile you want on the inside edge of your stiles and rails. Then cut the dados for the panels with a router or table saw. Then cut away the profile on the end of the stiles, with 45 deg angles on the profiles where the stiles and rails meet. Cut mortises in the stiles and rails for a loose tenon, and you're done. Same thing for raised panels. You can use your table saw to cut raised panels, or even your router with a straight bit and a jig to hold it at the desired angle. I even cut a few with a large cove bit I already had. You can spend money to make frame and panel doors, or none at all.

[Paul Incognito]

Thanks John,
I kind of suspected that the fault was in my machining or glue-up. It's just easier to blame the equipment So instead of buying the dowel jig I'll take some extra care with stock selection, machining and glue-up of my next bach of doors. And best of all, this will be free!
Happy New Year!
PI

[Philip Rodriquez]

I actually sold him my cope and stick router set and I showed him how to use them. Paul, It is a good practice to mill your wood oversized, day one, and bring it down to finished size, day two. You'll get much flatter doors.

[Steve Jenkins]

Paul,when you are clamping up the door make sure to check for flatness with a straightedge across the rail to stile joint. It is really easy to pull the stiles up when you tighten the clamps. depending on what you are using for clamps you may need to use a narrow backup stick set slightly below center on the stile edge.

[Paul Incognito]

Philip, that's a great idea! I'll try that with the job I'm starting next week.
Steve, yea, I tend to rush thru the glue up. I'll take a little more time this time around and double check everything.
Thanks for your help!
Happy New Year!
PI

[Frank Drew]

I like a mortise and tenon joint for its proven strength and longevity; to make cope and stick joints with router bits, I removed the bearing from the coping cutter, and ground off the screw down to the top of the bit so that I could still make the coping cut under a normal tenon, using a fence and/or miter guide.