Cabinet doors

[Matt Marsh]

I'm still in the process of building the base cabinets for my shop, along pretty much the entire 30' length of one wall. It's been an ongoing project that I have been doing in my spare time, mostly on weekends, for what seems to be forever now. I am new to cabinet construction, so its taking a lot of extra time.

The carcasses are complete, all of the drawers are built and installed sans the fronts, and I have almost half of the doors made and installed. The doors are shaker style, with plywood panels, the rails and stiles are made of Poplar. My rail and stile bit set set leaves a square corner on the inside corners. On the doors that I have built so far, I've glued them up and then slightly rounded these corners over by hand with sandpaper, but man is it getting tedious! Especially along the rails, where it is easy to slip and sand across the grain of the plywood. Any advice on speeding things up, or maybe changing my process?

Thanx! Matt

[Bill Huber]

I would have to see the profile but I would think you could just use a 1/8" round over bit in the router table or with a handheld router.

[Chip Lindley]

Matt, what you actually need is a 1/8" radius roundover bit in your router table. Surely you have a router table for the rail/stile joints of your doors. Round over tops and bottoms first, then the sides. Makes short work of such an operation!

Oops Bill, did not see your posting! Great minds think alike!

~~Chip~~

[Mark Wooden]

Why do you find the square corner on an inside edge a problem? If you use a round over bit on the inside of your doors after assembly you should do it face up , router hand held so you can see what you’re doing; and there probably won’t be room for the bearing over the panel. And you would still have to fair the inside of the corner where the bit can’t cut.
I’d just lightly break the corner with some 220 to take the sharp edge off and make it easy for the finish/paint to adhere.
You can make a bigger cut with a scraper, but you'll have to put a stop on it to keep the corner of it from scratching the panel.
Sanding s**s; looks easy, but is hard to do well and takes more time than anyone wants to spend. Welcome to woodworking.

[Jamie Buxton]

One way to ease the inside edges is to clamp up the door frame without the panel in place. Hand sand the inner edges. Then unclamp and reassemble with glue.

If you use a roundover bit on the inside edges, check that the bearing on the bit does not fall into the groove for the panel.

[Matt Marsh]

Thanks for responding guys. Mark has pretty much hit it on the head. I'm not sure how you would ever use a roundover bit with a pilot, because there is only 1/4" of depth to the plywood panel. I can't come up with a way to do it on my table either. Here is a profile.

55438-profile.jpg

[Matt Marsh]

One way to ease the inside edges is to clamp up the door frame without the panel in place. Hand sand the inner edges. Then unclamp and reassemble with glue.

If you use a roundover bit on the inside edges, check that the bearing on the bit does not fall into the groove for the panel.

Hmmmm, You might be on to something here Jamie!

[Bill Huber]

Thanks for responding guys. Mark has pretty much hit it on the head. I'm not sure how you would ever use a roundover bit with a pilot, because there is only 1/4" of depth to the plywood panel. I can't come up with a way to do it on my table either. Here is a profile.

55438-profile.jpg

All you have to do is before you put them together is to set up the roundover bit in the router table and then set the fence even with the bearing and the bearing will never go into the slot for the plywood. What you do have to watch is on the rails is not to go all the way, set a stop and then finish that little bit by hand.

The other way I would try is to stack another bearing on the bit and then with everything clamped together use a handheld router.

[Matt Marsh]

Thanks again guys, I'll give the 1/8" roundover in the table a try!

[Sam Murdoch]

When I intend to round over or chamfer the inside edges of of door parts or 5 piece panels I don't hesitate to run the rails with a router all the way through - even before I cross cut them to length or profile the end joints. I don't run the stiles however without setting accurate stops at each end. You surely don't want the radius to run through the stile past the end of the rails. Even when just sanding an eased edge I typically sand all my rail parts prior to assembly then sand the stiles after assembly. No harm to the cross grain of the panels that way and 1/2 the sanding is already done before the doors are assembled.