Popular Woodworking 2002-02 № 126, страница 52

ULTRAFAST

Fram

Build traditional doors using modern tools.

When you've got it down, try your hand at this simple cherry stepback.

50 Popular Woodworking February 2002

Without a doubt, mortise-and-tenon joints make the strongest frame-and-panel doors. But this traditional joint strikes fear into the hearts of beginning woodworkers because it requires either precision with a hand saw and chisel or a deep wallet to buy some serious machinery. After 17 years of building doors, I've found a method that is fast enough for a professional cabinetshop but uses tools you'd find in a home workshop.

Essentially, you cut your tenons with a dado stack in your table saw. You cut your mortises with a hollow chisel mortiser, mortising attachment for your drill press or Forstner bit. And you make your raised panels using a router table, table saw or even a shaper.

Now before you start thinking that this sounds really expensive, let's take a minute to do the math. You probably already have an 8" dado stack. If not buy one for $85. There's lots

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of other ways it will be useful in your shop. If you don't have a hollow chisel mortiser, it would be nice to get one of these, too. A decent benchtop model will cost $250, or you can buy an attachment for your drill press for $75. Mortising equipment will change your woodworking. Suddenly it's child's play to make everything as stout as a mule. If you don't want a hollow chisel mortiser, you can cut these mortises by chain-drilling overlapping holes using a Forstner bit in your drill press. Finally, to make the raised panel you can use a raised-panel bit in your router table or shaper, or you can raise the panel on your table saw using a rip blade.

I design my inset doors (as I did for this project) so they're exactly the same dimension as the door opening. Then I trim them down on my jointer to get a perfect ¹/l6" gap all around. Begin building your doors by milling out your stock to the proper thickness. Doors are made up of stiles (the vertical pieces), rails (the horizontal pieces) and the panel. Make your rails and stiles ³/4" thick and your panel ^s" thick. Cut your rails and stiles to size but leave the panel oversized until assembly.

Cutting Tenons

I like to cut the tenons first because it is faster.

by Troy Sexton

Troy Sexton designs and builds custom furniture in Sunbury, Ohio, for his company, Sexton Classic American Furniture. Troy is a contributing editor for Popular Woodworking.