Door Tops Bottoms

Once the hinges were finally installed, it came time for me to make the doors. They are a rather simple design. Each door is a piece of ¾” baltic birch plywood with a 3” wide top and bottom lip. The top and bottom lips are to create pockets behind the doors where I’ll be able to store chisels and other hand tools.

Assembly squares and clamps ensure the hinges
are in the correct position of relative dimensioning.

As with every step of construction, I began by relatively dimensioning the size of the door opening. I used assembly squares and clamps to hold the hinges in their proper closed position and then used my story stick to determine the actual width of the door opening.

Using the story stick I cut the door panels and test fit them with a single screw in each door.

Test fitting the doors.

Once I knew the door panels fit, next came cutting the lips. I did this by first ripping a piece of ¾” baltic birch to 3”. Then I laid the piece inside the cabinet against the top and bottom. I  set the pieces against the side and directly marked the center triangle. It was then a simple matter of taking the 3” strips over to the miter saw and voila, I had my tops and bottoms cut.

Rasping the hinge recesses.

Before attaching the top and bottom lips, I took my rasp to them to create a small recess to house the portion of the hinge which wraps around the back of the door panel.

Dominoing the lips on the doors

This will come as a shock to anyone who’s been following along, but I then attached the top and bottom with my Domino. I got sloppy with the last row of Dominos, failing to adjust the width as I should have, but the bottom won’t have to hold any weight, so just four (4) is still probably overkill.

Plenty of hinge room now.

Once the lips were glues on, I tried fitting the doors. Unfortunately, I found that the recesses which I had rasped into the lips, and had feared would be too deep, were in fact too shallow. The hinge would not fit into them. While I could have taken out my metal tools and trimmed the hinge, I instead chose to take the doors to the table saw. I set the fence exactly the door thickness achoice from the blade and made four (4) quick cuts to allow room for the hinges. This did result in over-sized recesses, but it’s only shop furniture.

It doesnt photograph any different, but the door panel
is now smoother than a babys bottom.

The final thing I did to the doors before mounting was to test out my Mirka AbraNet sanding pads. I ran through the full assorted pack, P80 to P600 and was nothing but impressed. My doors are now almost glass like in their finish and I haven’t finished them yet!Do you take easy over pretty on shop furniture?

Other Bastard Wall Cabinet PostsWinter Wall Cabinet WonderlandThe Bastard Wall Cabinet (for tools!)Trudging Towards Tool StorageCutting the Cabinet Carcass (in relative terms)A Home For My PlanesContinued Wall Cabinet AssemblyWhats a Bastard Wall Cabinet without Shelves?

Boxing in the Bastard Tool Cabinet

Door Hinges on the Bastard Wall Cabinet

Oh, You Mean That Was Supposed To Lift?

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