Sawdust on the Floor

The next step in the built in bookcases was the most difficult and complicated, the enclosed bottom portion of the cases. These are comprised of a series of raised panel doors, mounted in a flat face frames.  Building the face frames really wasn’t difficult, just a series of rails and stiles connected together with one of my favorite joinery methods, Kreg Pocket joinery. The doors themselves were another story in itself.

Since building the face frames was the easy part, we might just as well start our discussion there.  I originally contemplated making one large face frame that went from edge of the room to the other, but soon discarded that idea. I know for certain that the walls in my home are not perfectly flat, straight and plumb.  In fact I seriously doubt that you could find many walls in any home that meet those requirements. With that understanding, I knew that for the fit to be correct, that both edges of the face frame would have to be scribed into the wall. I was concerned that even if I could measure the space between the two walls absolutely correctly that after I had taken material off each end for the scribe, the face frame would be too small to fit the entire length.  Therefore, I decided to make three individual face frames, one for each of the section of the bookcase.  Then using a trick I learned a long time ago, I cut a 45º bevel along the outside edge of the stile that would meet the wall before joining the rails and stiles together to form the face frame.  The reason that I cut the bevel is that it makes scribing a lot easier.  You see you only have to plane or sand off the very edge of the bevel instead of the entire thickness of the stile.

Then thinking about it, I realized that I had created a new problem for myself. I couldn’t really size the center face frame section until I had actually installed the outer two sections of face frames, bummer.  My solution was to make the stiles on center section over size, where the stiles on the outer two sections were cut to 2 ½”, these I cut to 3” wide. I figured that I could cut them down once I had installed the other units.

So after dressing the stock on my jointer and then the surface planer, I fabricated the three face frame sections. Then, using glue and Kreg pocket screws, I joined the rails and stiles together.  Then I put these aside while I fabricated the raised panel doors.

The doors themselves were made using interlocking joinery that is known as cope and stick joinery.  I have made several of these doors in the past and other then some really touchy setup issues they are not really hard to make.  The joints are formed using a special set of router knives that are normally mounted in a router table or a shaper.  One knife cuts a profile along the inside edge of the rails and stiles.  Part of this profile is a dado for the door panel to set in.  The other knife is used to cut a complementary profile in the ends of the rails.  This complementary profile then fits very snuggly into the profile in the edge of the stiles.  Sounds simple, but …. as every woodworker knows, nothing is that simple.

Getting to the stage where we can cut the profiles starts with some very careful dressing of the stock.  All of the stock for the door frames must be dressed first with the jointer  and the surface planed to an exact thickness.  All of the edges must also be kept to a very accurate 90º angle.  If any of these truths are not met then the door pieces will not fit together correctly. Since it is very possible that while you are making these door rails and stiles, you may….. make a mistake; I would advise that you always mill extra stock for the rails and stiles.

And for some unknown reason that I don’t recall now, I decided to make these doors with curved tops on the raised panel doors instead of the conventional square topped doors. I suspect that most woodworkers are always working to expand  their skill sets, the curve topped doors was a next logical step for me.  I spent some time deciding on the correct size and shape for the curved portion of the door.  Once the shape and size were determined, I made a template of the shape.  While some woodworkers will use hard board material for templates, I chose to make my templates out of UHMW Plastic.  In either case, this template is used to form the shape of the curve in both the top rail of the door and later the top of the raised panel insert. It’s important in my mind to have the shape and size of the curve determined before you mill the material for the rails and stiles of the door.  Adding the curve to the top, requires that the top rail of the doors be taller than a conventional square topped door.  How much taller, well…… that depends on the size and shape of the curve.

Once all of the layout work is done, and the stock has been dressed, it’s time to actually make the door.  I started by shaping all of the upper rails of the doors.  I rough cut the shape of the curve in the upper rails using my band saw.  I kept the cut just proud of the actual line.  Then using my shaper and the template, I refined the curve in all of the upper rails.  I installed a flush cutting router bit that was equipped with a guide bearing in my shaper. After attaching the template to the upper rail blanks, I refined the curve.   A word of caution here, if I may.  Normally when you use a router bit in either your router table or shaper, you will use the fence of tool as a guide for your stock, but with a curved piece of work this is not possible.  Without the fence, it would appear that our only option would be to free hand the stock past the spinning router bit.  This is extremely  UNSAFE.  Never attempt to free hand anything on a router table or shaper.  The stock can be caught or pinched by the spinning bit, when this happens the stock will be forcibility removed from your hands, and where the stock and your hands end up is not a pretty thought.  All shapers and some router tables are equipped with removable reference pins.  These pins will screw into internal threads that are machined into the top of the shaper table.

The idea is that you install the reference pin on the infeed side of your router or shaper bit.  You would then move your stock past the spinning bit, while at the same time keeping your stock in contact with the reference pin.  A second word of caution, is that you always want to use push stick to move the stock.  Push sticks are replaceable, your fingers are not.

Once the upper rails are milled to their proper shape, it’s time to cut the cope and stick profiles in all of the stock.  But looking at the length of this post, I realize that perhaps that should wait until the next time we get together. 

For more information on or to purchase any of the products discussed in this post, please click on the highlighted links and images in the post.

Related posts:

1. Woodworking Projects: Built In Bookcase Part Five
2. Woodworking Project: Built-in Book Case Part Three
3. Woodworking Project-The Secret Behind the ‘Dartboard’ – Circuit Breaker Panel Part 1
4. Woodworking Projects : Built in Book case Part Four
5. Woodworking Project – Wall Clock Part 2