My solution is to add a temporary end cap then fill the
void with epoxy as shown in the left photo.
Once the epoxy cures the temporary end cap is removed and the epoxy
sanded flush. The right photo shows the
finished patch.
From this point the assembly process is just like the
first cabinet. Here are both of them
assembled plus the one on the right has the door clamped in place for a test
fit. The primary item here is to make
sure the door fits squarely in the opening.
Fortunately, it fits very well which is a relief.
Because the door is inset, I need to have a spacer
between the door and the legs. One side
is for the hinges and the other side is for symmetry. The hinge side has two purposes. First, is for clearance at the knuckle that
surrounds the hinge pin. The drawing
below shows what I mean.
Second, is to provide additional offset for the hinge so
it is a little farther away from the leg allowing the door to open wider
without the door frame hitting the leg.
Some time ago I had cut blanks to be used for these
spacers and set them aside.
Unfortunately, over time they had curved enough that they were
unusable. The good news is once they are
cut down, I have a whole bunch of nice oak paint stirrers. 😊 After cutting new spacers to the correct
thickness I ripped them down to the required width. Because the pieces are fairly thin at just a
little over 3/16” thick a hold-down is used to keep the piece tight to the saw
table which minimizes any blade induced chatter or vibration. Here is what that looks like.
Next is to put a 1/16” radius on spacers using the
router. After clamping the door in place
to check the fit they were removed, sanded then glued and pin nailed in
place. Lastly because the spacers are so
thin a caul is clamped on them to provide pressure all along the piece. In this case the caul is just a piece of
thicker wood used to spread the pressure of clamps so not as many are needed.
Here is a close look at the installed spacer after the
glue cured and the caul removed. There
are two of the pin nails in the photo and to make them easily visible they are
circled in red.
Using pin nails to hold pieces like the spacer in place
until the glue sets work very well and are virtually invisible. That’s because they have no head and are very
thin. For this application I used pins
that are 5/8” long and 23 gauge or just over .02” in diameter. Below is a photo of a single pin and a stick
of them along with part of a 6” ruler.
Mounting the hinges comes next. Because of the door size I decided to use
four hinges on each door. After
experimenting with different spacing I settled on what “looked” right. The process behind the spacing started with
placing the top hinge close enough to the top to provide support for the corner
joint and to minimize any twist on the vertical piece plus it had to look like
it’s in the right place. The bottom
hinge is next set just a little farther from the end than the top hinge. That’s so visually there will be more weight
at the bottom and the door won’t look top heavy. It’s not a lot, just about 10% of the top
hinge distance. Once again it has to
look right. The other two hinges are
evenly spaced between the top and bottom.
The left photo is what I ended up with while the right is a closeup
showing the pencil alignment mark.
With the hinges located, I set the door in the adjustable
panel clamp on my workbench then taped the hinges in place. Having the door at a convenient working
height makes things easier.
The hinge is clamped in place so it does not shift and
will be tight to the door after the screws are installed. Using a self-centering drill bit in the slotted hole marked is so a pilot hole of the appropriate size can be drilled. Here is what that looks like along with the
self-centering drill bit.
Below is a closer view showing one of the holes marked.
After the pilot hole is drilled a single screw is run
into one of the hinges slotted holes.
That leaves me room for adjustment later on. An old maxim comes into play here, “If you
can’t make it perfect, make it adjustable.”
Here is the top hinge in place.
Note that the screw does not match the hinge. That’s because I have twisted off the hinge
supplied screws before and don’t want a repeat of that so a higher quality e.g.
stronger screw the same size as the final one is used until the final hinge
install.
The door is then clamped in place along with the hinges
and a single screw is installed through each hinge into the leg. Here a photo showing what the clamping setup
looks like.
After the screws are installed and the clamps removed the
door is checked for a consistent even gap at the non-hinge side plus the top
and bottom. Top and bottom spacing is
easily adjust by loosening the hinge screws and sliding the door up or
down. However, the gap at the non-hinge
side was not quite right. At the very
top and bottom corners the gap narrowed slightly, less than 1/16” but enough
that it needed correcting. The fix is to
use take a scrap the thickness of the desired gap then used to mark a cut
line on the door.
After marking the door is removed and put back in the
workbench adjustable panel clamp. Once
securely in place hand planes and sanding blocks are used to trim the door edge.
When done the door is reinstalled back into the cabinet,
here it is open.
The same process is followed for the other door.
Next up – Routed Door Edges, Installing the Spacers,
Shelves Part 1
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