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Bill’s Saw Cabinet 2 - Raised Panel Door
by Bill Taggart

I made this raised panel door to enclose a storage cabinet I had made for some of my hand saws. I decided to make the whole thing using only non-electric hand tools, just for fun. The dimensions shown are as needed to fit the saw cabinet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The entire door is made of plain old pine 1x6 boards purchased from the local Lowe’s. I picked the clearest ones that I could find.

To make the rails and stiles, I just eyeballed what I thought looked like a decent width for all the frame members. The stiles and top rail ended up 2-1/2” wide; the bottom rail is 3” wide. I ripped them to approximate width with a rip saw and then jointed the edges to finished width with a Stanley #7.

 

I plowed grooves in all the frame members with a Stanley #50, and used back saws to cut the haunched tenons in the rails, as shown in the drawing. I chopped the mortises with pigsticker mortise chisels.

The panel is made up of three boards edge-glued together. I first jointed the edges of the boards with my Stanley #7 and then glued them together.

Once the glue dried I ripped and crosscut the panel to finished overall dimensions. I gave the panel a few passes with the jointer plane to level out the joints – it didn’t really need much more than that.

I raised the panel using a wooden skew rabbet plane. I did the cross-grain ends first so that any tearout would be planed away when I did the sides. I clamped the panel to the bench and just eyeballed the angle.

I didn’t use a batten or guide; instead I gripped the plane so that my thumb hung down and rode along the edge of the panel as a guide, which allowed me to make a very even and consistent bevel.

 

 

I did a few test fits and planed the bevels down until the panel was just slightly snug in the grooves.

 

I applied glue to the tenons and assembled the whole thing. While it was in the clamps, I drilled holes through the corners and drove through some black walnut pins that I had made from an old piece of firewood.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I finished the whole thing with a few coats of a mixture of equal parts boiled linseed oil, turpentine and varnish. I painted the saw cabinet with some green deck paint I had lying around left over from painting the deck on the back of my house.

January, 2006
© Bill Taggart

...part 1