The Dale C. Maley Family Web Site

I have been a hobby woodworker for more than 40 years.  I never thought I could afford the router bit set required to make cabinet doors.  On the few projects that I had to make doors, I routed a 1/4" wide groove in the rail and styles, and then inserted oak covered 1/4" thick plywood.   To connect the rails to the styles, I routed a 1/4" wide groove, and used a piece of 1/4" thick oak in the corner joints like this............on a guitar storage oak case I built for the Fairbury Baptist Church youth center.............

I went back and bought this set back in July of 2019........boy..........almost a year ago !!

There are many different styles of router bits..........I apparently chose the Shaker style for the set I bought.

I have never taken the bits out of the box yet, but today is the day :)

Here is what I actually received when I bought the router set......

I made an illustration of what bit is supposed to be used for.   I may even print it out and put it in the lid of the box :)

I did not buy this software.  I'm guessing it might be handy if you are doing multiple kitchen cabinets.   I will see how hard it is to use the bits first, before I buy it.

I measured the rails and styles on my basement kitchen cabinets, they are 2 inches wide.

So, I will cut down some cheap pine 1x4's, rip to 2 inches wide, with no knots, and go for an 8x12 size door.

When I set up the grooving tool, I had the white plastic height setter upside down, so I cut no tapered edge !!

I ripped that cut off and started over with the right height.

The rails and styles need to be face down on the router table, not face up. 

When I went to use the 2nd bit and make the male tenon, I got blow-out at the end of the cut, splintering the wood. I need to use a sacrificial piece at the end to eliminate the blow-out.

I probably bought my small router table back in 1982 for  a whopping $25!   I put it on a metal stand from Harbor Freight many years ago, and it works fine.

The downside of this old router table is the hole for the bit is relatively small, I will have to measure, but it is less than 2 inches in diameter.

Whenever I have a bit with an OD bigger than the hole in the table, I have to build a custom wood fence.  I checked my stock of wood fences, and none of them suited me for the raised panel bit.  The raised panel bit is 2.5" diameter.

I built a new custom wood fence for the router table.  

I also learned the first time I used a big bit on a project, you want the router speed dialed down to the slowest speed. I forgot to do this on the first big bit I used..........and my router sounded like a 747 jet engine winding up !!    I pulled the router from the table, found out where slow speed is, and marked that direction on the wood below the router, so I know which way is slow and fast.

I did a test piece of pine wood with the new fence. There is no height plastic block for this one.   I kind of centered the bit on the wood, but the top radius needs to stick up higher than the wood.   I took about 4 passes, and it came out fine.

The slowest router speed worked ok for this big bit.

Turns out I don't need one, because when I double-checked, rails, stiles, and raised panel all have to be with finish side down for all routing operations.

I did not realize I bought this bit when I purchased the set a year ago.

So, I decided to try it out.  The fence must be flush with the top cutter, otherwise the last 2 inches of the board will be cut deeper than the rest !!    Once I adjusted the fence flush with the top cutter, then it worked fine.   It is a little tricky figuring out which way the 2nd board went into the router table, but I used the white plastic guide to help figure it out........you don't move anything when you go from routing the first board, to routing the second board.

I was amazed the top and bottom surfaces lined up perfectly on the glue joint !!   I may use when I glue up other boards into panels !!

since it was a test piece made from pine, I used the bottom piece that had the blow-out in the back, you can see it in the lower left hand corner.

After I figured out the process with the pine door, I wanted to make 1 from red oak, since that is the most common material I use.   I used some scraps for the rails and stiles.  For the raised panel, I cut 2 pieces from a new piece of Menard's red oak.   I decided to use the new board jointer bit, and it worked great per my note above.  Everything went fine on the oak pieces and the door. I made the raised panel 1/8" less than the height and width full dimensions to allow for movement. I used a steel nail in the top and bottom of the panel to keep it from rattling.

The only issue I ran into, was after I glued up the frame, I noticed the top or bottom stile was not setting flat with the rest of the door.   When I make more of these doors, I will have to maybe clamp them down to a board to make sure all 4 pieces are flat.

I am going to use light oak stain on this door.

It was figuring out how to use all the bits, and then produce some good looking doors.  Once I figured out what I was doing on the 1st pine door..........it was  a piece of cake to make the oak door.  I may order another style of bit to give me another choice besides the Shaker design I bought.