First we need to make a tray that has the same radius as the outside of the panel. This will help in supporting the panel fully while running the ends of the panel. I use a piece of 3/4 mdf long enough to support at least half of the panels length. Radius pieces are made from 3/4 mdf and screwed to tey base. The base will then be clamped to the shaper table. Another piece of mdf or plywood, 1/2” thick in ths case is attached to the shaper fence creating a full fence smooth fence to run the panel against shown in the picture below.

The panel cutter is set to the level of the 3/4 tray base. The tray needs to centered on the cutter head. After everything is set up just right the panel should be able to slide freely through the tray. I some times use drawer lube on the ribs of the tray so it slides a little easier. Now the ends of the panel can be run. A word of caution here,,,,,,,Hold the panel securely! Maybe even take small pass’s at a time rasing the cutter a little on each pass until you reach the last pass.

On these panels we need to run a cove on the inside of the panel edges. I do this on a router table. You’ll need a fence that is cut to the inside radius this time of the panel to run the ends. I just used a piece of 1” mdf for the fence in this case. See below.

No magic on the side edges in this process. Just set up a straight fence and run the sides. Sorry didn’t get any pictures of this set up. That’s it for the panels except for more sanding. Now the they can be finish sanded and they are ready for the doors.

Doweling the the styles and rails.

I use an old Newton two head horizontal drill for doweling the styles and the rails. Once again a tray or block is needed that is cut to the same radius as the outside radius of the door. I use double stick tape to hold the block in palce on the bed of the doweler. The angle that is cut on the end of the styles and the rails needs to be held at 90 degrees to the table of the machine. Then its just drilling holes and your done.

You can drill the holes with a hand dowel jig an old Stanley will work here. It takes a little doing but it is possible.

Time to dry fit and check everything out and see how we did.

Next up,,,,,,,,,gluing the door together.

Thanks for hanging out with me. And I hope this makes you want to try this out sometime yourself.

Okay Babe! Here’s where things was at, at the end of the day Monday.

Tuesday evening after work. Milled the Hard Maple for all the draw boxes and glued up the sides.

I picked up the draw slides today, maybe I can get those in tomorrow as well. Oh yea, I picked up a pad for the changing table on Saturday. It one of those with the curved sides.

I’ll be done in time babe! Just don’t let her go early!
Love Dad!

After the angle is cut on both both sides the parts are biscuted a to help in the gluing process. Make sure you keep them back far enough so they do not come out in the profile of the panel.

Then I use a piece of 1” mdf as a clamping pad for the panel. It is cut an 1/8 smaller in width than the width of the panel is when it is fit together. Making the clamp pad narrower than the panel will help in keeping the panel the right radius. It will crush the sides of the panel, but that’s ok. The panel is oversized at this point. Clamping blocks are cut to the outside radius of the panel and full width of the panel. Assemble the panel and clamp it to the 1” piece of mdf along its width. Then take the clamp blocks and clamp them over the top of the panel to the 1” thick mdf under the panel. The pictures below will explain better than I can.

Ok,,,,,,,,,More sanding blocks are made for the inside and the outside and the sanding begins. If you have taken your time and fit things well there sanding shouldn’t be to bad.

Well lets see how we did. Below is a picture of a larger panel that was for the Island, but it was made the same way as our door panels were. The computer drawing is full size, the second line on that drawing is the outside radius of our panel.

TA DA!!! Here’s how it came out.

Running the profile on the panels is next,,,,don’t miss it!

Thanks for hanging with me. We’re getting close to a dry fit.

Let’s see I picked up some shaper knives, a few insert router bits. Got another Dynabrade orbital sander. Ordered Five 8’ and twelve 5’s of the new bessy k body clamps (not availible till November). Ordered a Osillating Belt sander (shopfox).

And the best thing I got I think was an electric hydraulic lift table with a 30” x 60” top. It goes all the way down to 4” from the floor to 42” high off the floor with the press of of a foot pedal. It will lift 1500 lbs> I plan on adding 4’ x 8’ top to it with torsion box all the way around the edges. I hoping this make it easier on my back. I can build projects on it and move it up and down to level I need it at to work on. Should be here in two weeks or so. I’ll post some pictures after I get it all set up.

Christmas in August! Who said Santa only comes once a year!

Also went through CNN, went to the Falcons and Titans pre-season game (three rows up in the endzone). The Aquarium, Coca-cola museum, the Swan house (histical home). Two other museums, olympic park, Atlanta underground, Botanica,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeewa!! I had to come home and go back to work so I could rest….......................ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

After the sanding is done its time to run the profile on the rails. I didn’t get any pictures of this, sorry. I don’t make any special jigs fot this. I just run them on the shaper free hand against the fence keeping the radius centered on the spindle. Our shaper has bars on the fence that swing around and lock into the other fence over the the cutter head, making a full fence across the spindle. If you don’t have that on your shaper clamp a wood fence across the two and make the center of the spindle on the wood fence and it will work the same way. If you are a novice I wood not suggest you do it this way, you should make radius fences to help hold the work in place, this will make it more stable.
After the profile has been run its time to run the 1/4 slot for the panels. I do this on the router table with a 1/4 straight cutter. I make a fence to match the inside radius of the rails and set it up to match the styles. Pictured below.

This next picture is showing how I ran the rabbit on the rails for the glass doors, its done much the same way as the paneled rails are done.

Ok, lets get them cut to length. I make a cradle to hold the rails at the right angle and clamp it in the tray on the table saw. I cut one side of all my rails first, making sure the angle is just right. I take either two rails or a rail and a style hold them together on a full size drawing and make sure the maintain the radius. Next I determine the length of the rail and place a stop block on the cradle and cut the other side of all the rails.

When all the rails have been cut I take the same cradle I just used and take two pieces and make a 90 degree piece about ten inches long ro so and cut a 45 on one end and add it to the back of the cradle to hold it at a 45 degree angle in the table saw tray. The only bad part here is you need two cradles exactly a like. One right and one Left to cut the jack miters on both ends of the rails.

If anyone would like more or better pictures of any of the jigs used here, just let me know and I’ll get some taken of them for you. And if you have any questions please ask. I know I haven’t been really very thorough here on some things. But I’ll do my best to answer any questions that you have. I’d much rather be showing you in person if that were possible.

Remember you can click on the pictures to see them in full view.

Next up! getting the panels together.

I take two styles and trim them to angle I have just laid out. (at this point the styles are still about an inch to wide) Then I take them and stand them up on my drawing together and see if they follow the radius of the door perfectly. When I’m happy with angle I go ahead and cut all the styles to that angle on one side only.

Now its time to run the profile and rabbit for the panels on the styles. I apologize I seem to have forgot to take pictures of the process so I’ll explain as best as I can. To run the profile the angled side I just cut needs to run flat on the table when routing or shaping. I usually just put it up against the fence with the edge flat on the table and run it through, but finger boards might be a good idea here. (remember I’ve done this a few times). After that I do pretty much the same thing on a router table to run the 1/4” rabbit for the panel. Setting up a fence and just running it through. Sorry I forgot the pictures on this part.

After the the shaping and rabbiting is done its time to cut the jack miters. Cut all the styles to length, I cut mine tight to the opening the door is going in. The miter is cut using a tray on the table saw. A thin strip of wood is cut to hold the style out away from the fence so the angle on the edge of the style is flat to the tray. I probley do a no, no here, but its the way I do it. I set up both sides of the tray to cut the miters or you need two table saws that tilt different directions. Here’s some pictures of that process.

After the they have been mitered we need to remove the waste. New trays are made to hold the styles at the cut angle, this is a slighty different than the original angle that was cut on the edge of the style. Remember your moving around a circle. The trays are to cut the waste away using the bandsaw pictured below. Remember I’m making two different kinds of doors with two different radius, thats why I have two different trays pictured here. I’ll get back to the glass door later on but the process is the same for both doors right now. However the jigs are slightly different because the radius is different.

I cut them slightly strong and trim the rest on the router table using the same tray. Seen below.

There will be a small are left that needs to removed by hand

Presto! The styles are finished

Nothing to it,,,,,,,,,,,,next time finishing up the rails.
Thanks for you time!

Ok, lets get started on the rails for the doors and the the face frame for the cabinet case. I just make a 1/2” thick template out of some mdf or scrap maple fc. I take my time and try to get my template about a 1/32” over sized. In this case my doors are 1” thick so the template for the rails is 1 1/32” wide. I use the same template for the cabinet rails that I use for the doors, so that all parts are the same.

Here is the cabinet case with the rails and the rail template.

Here’s the door rails and the case rails, from the same template.

The rails for the doors in this case are 2 1/2” wide if I remember right. I didn’t have thick enough poplar for the rails so I just used two pieces of 8/4 and glued them together to make up the rails. These doors paint so I wasn’t two concerned about the glue line.

Here’s the door rails being glued up.

After all are glued then comes the sanding. Remember they are at least 1/32” to thick right now to allow for getting them sanded and cleaned up. This done all by hand. I make sanding blocks out of lumber for both the inside and the outside. Stick them in a vise and go at it. I use sticky back sand paper and just stick to the sanding pads. 80 grit then 120 grit. Final sanding to 180 grit is done after the doors are completely assembled.

Next up,,,,,,,, getting the panels glued up.

Lets start with making the jigs to mill the radius styles for each set of doors. The starting lumber size for the styles will be 1 1/4” thick x 3 1/2” wide. I always make them at least 4” longer than what the finished length will be. The starting thickness and width is also over sized. The doors I’m making are out of poplar.

Lets start with what I will call the sled. It consists of one piece 3/4 mdf or fibercore sheet stock. It is 3 1/2” wide and about 36” to 48” in length. It has two side rails from hardwood about a foot shorter than the mdf base. They are 3/4” thick x 2”wide. They are attached to the mdf sides to creat a sled for the styles to slide through. The drawings below has a small sketch in the corner of the sled. The main drawings are of the the inside and outside radius jigs that I will call the cradles.

If you double click in the drawing you can see the whole thing.

The cradle radius is either 3/4” or 1” smaller or larger than the finished radius of the door its self. I usually make mine 1” different. I use a 1/2” solid carbide down spiral bit that is 4” long to mill my parts. I make a wood base for the router about 5 1/2” square with it will need side rails attached to both sides that are about 1”wide. The cradle rails will go inside of the outer rails. This will keep the router on track if you wiil on the cradles while milling.

The inside radius needs to be milled first. They need to be routed right to the edge of the 3 1/2” width of your materail or you can leave a small 1/8” flat on each side. Just make sure you leave the materail thickness at 1 1/4” thick overall. This will give an edge to ride on when routing the outside radius and the cradles can still help hold the materail down.

The picture below is to show how I use the drawing to check my parts when milling. But its actually a pic of one of the rasied panel sections. The panels sections and the styles and rails are milled the same way.

After I mill the inside radius I go ahead and sand and clean it up before I mill the outside. I usually mill the them a 1/32” thick to allow for sanding and clean up to a final thickness of 1”. Please note that the panel parts are not sanded until after the panel is glued up, more on that later.

Here’s a pile of milled radius parts.

Well I’m sure I’ve left some things out that you need to know so I will check this over when I’m not quite so tired. Then I’ll add it in later. If you have any questions please ask I’ll do my best to answer them. Sorry it took so long to get to part two. I took an evening off to finally get this started.

Thanks for looking, see you next time.

We’ve been building another kitchen in the shop, its just about complete. Lucky for you that are interested it has curved doors, two different kind of curved doors. A pair of rasied panel doors and one single six light glass door. I’ve taken lots of pictures while I was making the doors so I hope by the time I’m done with this series of blogs you will all be experts at making curved doors of any kind.

I’m posting pictures of the finished product first, so you can see where we’re headed. Then I will go through every step and set up from start to finish. I will cover all the jigs that were needed to complete each step. And hopefully make the process easy enough that all of will want to try your hand at curved doors of some kind in the near furture.

I’m still working sevens days a week right now,,,,,,so! It might take me a while to get through all this, but I’ll do the best I can.

I might add one other thing. I lost my old computer a few weeks ago,,,,it died. I'm still figuring out this new one and I seem to be having problems sizing pictures correctly, but I'll try and get that figured out soon too.

Thanks for having a look